


Supernatural Season 15: What Might Have Been

by Giraffae



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18, Alternate Ending, Canon Rewrite, Destiel - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Rewrite, Season/Series 15, Series Finale, Song: Carry on My Wayward Son (Kansas), alternative ending, nail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28263276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giraffae/pseuds/Giraffae
Summary: Basically, I got so upset about the finale, I started rewriting season 15 while keeping as much good stuff as possible.This fic takes place after episode three of the show's last season. Everything up to that remains unchanged.Sam and Dean think they're finally free from Chuck, but life still seems to suck. Cas is gone and they have lost most of their family... again.After a fateful encounter they discover that the fight had never ended and search for a way to finally defeat God, once and for all. But for that they'll need help from old friends and foes alike.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak, Michael/Adam Milligan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Old friends

Sam sat in the bunker’s main hall, doing some research. Nothing. No cases. No signs of god either nor of Cas who had just left out of the blue and not returned any of his phone calls for three weeks now.

Dean seemed upset as usual. Sam had a feeling the two had a falling out but whenever he tried talking about it with his brother he not-so-skillfully changed the subject. As for Cas, well it wasn‘t easy talking to someone when they didn’t pick their phone, was it?

His brother took the reveal that Chuck had manipulated them the entire time significantly harder than Sam.  
“Why aren’t you more bothered about this?”, Dean had asked one time.  
“No, for real, why are you taking this so lightly? It’s like you don’t even care that that whoreson played us the entire time.”  
“Of course I care.”, Sam replied, but it didn’t sound too convincing.  
“Do you?”, Dean put down the machete he’d been cleaning.  
Sam sighed. “Look, this is just… it’s the same thing all over again.”  
“What do you mean?”, Dean asked.  
His brother shrugged. “I’ve been manipulated by demons my entire life, what difference does it make whether that was Azazel's or God’s plan?”  
Dean hadn’t actually thought about that. He knew that the angels had played matchmaker for their parents and he knew that it had been Azazel’s plan to make Sam Lucifer’s vessel, but “It seems different”, he concluded.  
“It really doesn't. It’s only different for you because this time it’s about both of us, not just me and you only by association.”  
Dean grumbled a response Sam didn’t understand. Then he asked out loud.  
“So you’re fine with this?”  
For just a second, Sam could feel his brain cells dying at that question: “No, Dean, obviously I’m not fine with this. But this is just the way it is -- apparently -- and I can’t do anything about it retroactively, I can only hope that Chuck finally moved on from us to the Sam and Dean from the universe next door. And that my bullet let’s him feel at least a little pain.”

Sam let out a deep sigh and closed the laptop. There was nothing to do but wait. For something. A case, a sign of god or Dean, finally coming home with the groceries.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment, his body slowly sliding down the chair. He was exhausted. Even though he hadn’t done anything all day. Maybe he just got old. His eyelids felt heavier by the second and the flickering lights soothed him into a light sleep.

_ Hang on,  _ Sam thought  _ flickering lights? _

All of a sudden he was very awake, the hand on his gun that was still lying on the table.

He turned around and pointed it directly at the ghost's head. His eyes widened in shock.

“Eileen?”, his voice sounded broken.

In front of him stood the woman he had last seen as a gruesomely mutilated corpse.

“Sam!”, she said in her quiet voice.

Dean had found a case while shopping groceries. He overheard an elderly couple talking about it and decided to check it out. Sure enough, the newspapers informed about a woman who had disappeared and her car along with her. Vanished without a trace in front of some pub. It was only a few hours from the bunker. He considered getting his brother but he felt like he needed some alone time so he texted Sam a short message then turned off his phone. 

The trip took about three hours. He blasted his favourite album on repeat the whole way there.

By the time Dean reached his destination it was dark. The neon lights proclaimed that the place was called _ Swayze’s Bar  _ and that there was a sale on Tequila shots on Tuesdays. Unfortunately, he had arrived a day early.

Dean looked at the article once more. The victim's name was Angela Sullivan. He mumbled it a few times, so he wouldn’t forget.

Then he entered the bar. It was a nice place. Wooden interior. It reminded him of Ellen’s Roadhouse from way back. The waitress saw him right away. She eyed him up and down and seemed pleased with what she saw.

Dean couldn’t help but put on his cocky smile.

_ Still got it _ , he mumbled to himself.

“Hello handsome, what can I get for ya?”

Dean had to clear his throat.

“My name’s Perry Peters, FBI. I’m investigating the disappearance of Angela Sullivan. I was told she was last seen here?”

The waitress's smile became crooked. This was apparently not what she had wanted to hear.

“There is no case. People leave all the time. Plus, her car was also missing. My guess is she took off. To Hollywood or New York or something. She’ll be back in a few months when all her dreams of becoming famous or whatever are crushed and she has nowhere left to go but back.”

“D’you know her?”

The waitress shook her head.

“Not really. Her parents died a few years back. She’s quiet. Doesn’t drink much. Speaking of, do you want anything?”

Dean considered for a second, but declined the offer. The waitress seemed offended.

“Her friend’s here all the time. Today too, probably. You can wait here until she arrives. But only if you order something.”

Dean didn’t hear the last part. The karaoke stage had caught his attention. They were playing a song he really liked. None of that prock crap, it was actual, proper rock from the 70’s.

The guy singing had a rough voice but he was actually kind of good. And he actually seemed to know the lyrics to the song, unlike most people who just sort of stumble through the verses.

He seemed familiar somehow, but that was impossible... unless?

“No way”, he said, completely ignoring the woman in front of him. He walked up towards the stage.

The guy noticed him and stopped singing mid chorus.

“No fucking way, Lee Webb in the flesh.”

“Dean Winchester.”, the other man recognised him. He jumped down and now they stood eye to eye staring at one another.

Then Dean pulled him into a hug and started laughing.

“Dude, I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“Me neither, how’ve you been? I thought you had died by now, for sure.”

Dean laughed again. He almost considered saying something along the lines of _ I did, actually. Several times.  _ But he restrained himself.

“nah, I’m still kicking.”

“I can see that. Come on, I’ll get you a drink. It’s on the house.”

“Do you own this place?”, Dean asked in astonishment.

“Of course”

“Awesome”

They sat down in a booth and the waitress from earlier brought them a few beers.

„How come you know each other? Are you in cahoots with the FBI?“, she asked Lee mockingly.

Lee eyed Dean, then they burst out laughing.

„You‘re doing a case? Here?“

„Yeah, it‘s about the girl that went missing? D‘you know her? Angela? It happened in the parking lot“, he pointed vaguely in the direction.

„Angela? No idea, sorry.“

„Sure you do.“, the waitress said.

„Angela? Brown hair? Didn‘t drink much. Mostly sat in that corner?“

Lee frowned, still confused.

„Her friend’s the blond one. Lilly“

„Oh yes, the one with the… the face right?“

She rolled her eyes. „Yes, that one.“

„Nah man, don‘t know her. Was here a few times but she was kinda a party pooper.”

Then, seemingly ending that part of the conversation he raised his beer and made a toast.

“To Dean Winchester. Biggest son of a bitch in the land”

The glasses klincked.

Dean and Lee filled each other in on each other’s lives. Lee’s parents had also been hunters which is why they had been on a few cases together, back when they were teenagers. 

They had gotten along well and slayen a few dozen monsters among themselves.

There had been a spark between them ever since Lee saved Dean from that nest of vampires but nothing much ever happened because Lee’s mom had been - surprisingly enough - a very religious woman and very not okay with having a gay son in the 90s.

After Lee had had a falling-out with her, him and Dean never really stayed in touch. Dean had to admit, he hadn’t thought about his old friend in years.

Since then, Lee had given up hunting, got himself a fiancée whom he married as soon as that was allowed and this bar.

Dean was jealous. He always wanted a bar. And give up hunting, settle down but whenever he tried, like that time with Lisa and Ben, something always seemed to stand in the way.

Usually something furry or black eyed or generally monstrous and evil.

When Dean told Lee about his dad’s death he made another toast.

“to John Winchester! One mess of a guy. I’ll never forget him for giving me my first beer. What a day that was!”

“I’ll drink to that!” Dean agreed and took a huge sip.

“Uhh, what’s the story?”, asked the waitress who was called Lorna, Dean had found out.

Lee shook his head.

“Some stories are better left untold.”

“He puked. Everywhere.”

Lorna laughed. “That sounds so like him.”

“Hey, I’m still your boss. Show some respect to your superiors.”

“I can quit, if you like.”

“No, please don’t, I need you”

“Fine”

Dean did his best to summarise everything that happened in the last years in a way that didn’t sound to outlandish. As expected, he failed miserably.

The only thing he didn’t mention was Cas. He didn’t wanna talk about him or even think about him.

If he did, he would feel bad and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was still angry at him or felt guilty for not running after him or if he just missed him.

“Dean, Angela’s friend’s here. Her name is Sally Anderson. The blond one with the mini skirt and the cowboy boots?”, Lorna had spotted her across the room.

Dean saw her. “Right, imma go over there. Be right back.”

“You know, Dean, I really don’t think there’s a case here. Angela probably just left to...”

“get famous or something? Yeah, but from what you’ve told me that doesn’t really add up. She doesn’t sound like someone who likes the spotlight. But nothing like talking to cowboy boots over there to find out.”, he winked and left the table.

Eileen and Sam had caught each other up on everything as best as they could. Eileen was one of the souls that escaped from hell, much like Kevin.

“I’m not going back there”, she said in tears, or whatever it was that ghosts excreted when they cried.

Sam nodded in understanding. 

“I've been there, too -- uh, Hell. A long time ago. You try and forget, but it gets inside you.”

He was afraid of what she would ask of him next.

“Can you get me… maybe your angel friend… can you get me into heaven?”

Sam felt like crying too. Eileen was such a nice person. Such a wonderful friend that had died way too early, like all his friends did.

Heavy heartedly, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Eileen. I’m so sorry. But souls that have been to hell can never go to heaven. The only one able to make exceptions is God… and he's not exactly keen on helping.”

She nodded. Sam was pretty sure that she hadn’t really hoped for much anyway.

“So what should I do?”

Every ghost, no matter how peaceful, got corrupted eventually. Even her.

Sam felt a strong urge to hold her hand and ensure her, everything would be fine, but he knew he couldn't.

He didn’t have an answer, so he said what he always said:

“I don’t know. But we’ll find something. I’m gonna hit the lore, see if we can find anything. An artefact, a spell, anything like that.”

And they got to work.

Well the conversation with Sally Anderson had been a bust. She had already been blackout drunk, so her speech pattern had been all over the place. But what little he had understood only confirmed his image of Angela, that she wasn’t one to just disappear and leave her intoxicated friend alone.

Lorna had suggested he should go to the junkyard, maybe her car was there.

“That’s where I would hide a dead woman’s car.”, she said.

In lack of a better plan, he now stood in front of a chain link fence, ready for some classic breaking and entering.

It was the next day. His plan had been to wake up early and be done by midday but by the time he finally got out of bed it was already 1 pm.

The junk yard was mostly abandoned, so he didn’t have to hide from any employees. Before he got here, he went to the police to ask them for a description of Angela’s car.

It was very quiet. So quiet in fact, that the sudden footsteps startled Dean and he immediately got out his gun and turned around to see Lee walking up to him.

He raised his hands “I come in peace, I promise”

Dean took a deep breath and lowered the weapon.

“You can’t sneak up on me like that, man! What are you doing here?”

“Thought I could help you out, for old time’s sake. I still think you won’t find anything but it’s better to be safe.”

“All right then”

They split up to cover more ground. Dean found nothing and almost started to believe Lee when he turned around the last corner. 

Sure enough, there was the white Hyundai and the license plate matched too. Lee came up behind him.

“I already checked here. Didn’t find anything.”

“You should get your eyes checked”, Dean pointed to the car.

Lee said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the car. Something in his expression was off, but that might’ve been because he felt dumb for being wrong or overlooking such an obviously placed object.

“I can’t believe I missed that.”, he finally said and his expression was back to normal.

Dean went to inspect the car.

“The driver's window is smashed in and there’s blood on the seat. Something definitely happened to Angela.”

Lee nodded.

“Any more leads?”

“I got it!”, Sam had just thought of something brilliant.

Eileen looked up from her copy of the bible.

“Rowena! When God opened that gate to hell Rowena made this chrystal to capture the escaped souls. It wasn’t strong enough to hold all of them but if I could replicate it, you could go there. It isn’t really good but it’s better than hell or going insane. And that way, I can always bring you back, in case I ever think of a better plan and…”

“Sam?”, Eileen stopped his rambling that had been hard to follow even at her skill level of lip reading.

“I’ll do it. What do we need?”

“I don’t know. But we can go to Rowena’s place and maybe I’ll find the book and the right ingredients.”, his thoughts trailed off for a moment.

He still felt guilty for killing her. Yes, it might have been the only option at the time and she had asked him to do it, but he couldn’t help but feel regret. He was scared to go back to her place. Dean wasn’t really fond of the idea either and Cas still didn’t answer his phone -- or prayers for that matter -- so they hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

“You miss her.”

“I killed her. Her idea. She, uh, sacrificed herself to save us. To -- to save the world. You ever feel you're the punchline to some cosmic joke?”

Eileen said nothing. That was answer enough.

“I was meaning to go there anyway. It’ll be good to have some company.”

He left Dean a message. What was it with his family and their inability to accept phone calls?

A few hours later they arrived at her house. It had been at least three weeks since anyone had set foot in the apartment. Surprisingly, there was no dust and the house plants all still flourished in the dim light.

The two got to work. They found… nothing. 

“How is that even possible?”, asked Sam, upset, after an hour of senseless searching.

Eileen shrugged. 

All the rooms were big and excentring looking, sure, but ultimately utterly normal. No witchcraft. Sam stared at the gigantic painting Rowena had commissioned of herself and enchanted to work like the ones in Harry Potter -- minus the talking. The painting stared back and lowered her eyebrows.

“Where did you hide your secrets?”, Sam whispered in thought.

The woman in the frame nodded with her head towards the bookshelf next to her and whinked.

Sam sat up straight.

“Did you see that?”, but Eileen was already at the bookshelf and stuck her head through.

Rowena smiled. “There’s a room!”

“Oh really?”, Sam asked the painting. “A secret chamber behind a shelf? That is so generic I didn’t even think about it!”

The figure crossed her arms and pulled a snout.

“You offended the painting!”

Sam was relieved Dean wasn’t here. He wouldn’t hear the end of it.

The secret chamber held all the stuff they were looking for. Sam found the right book instantly and gathered the ingredients.

He was about to start the enchantment on the rock, when he noticed another book from the corner of his eye. It was bound in bright red -- probably fake -- leather and said  _ Diary  _ in cheap gold print.

_ She kept a diary?  _ Without thinking he started skimming through the pages. Rowena had written at least one entry per week. Most of them were filled with mundane descriptions of her everyday life. She mentioned  _ the Boys  _ a lot. Sam was pretty sure that referred to him, Dean, Jack and Cas. She wrote about how annoying they were and how they kept calling her for any minor inconvenience.

_ “But they’re a bunch of buffoons so what was supposed to say? No?” _

Sam’s heart ached, when he read that.

Her last entry was dated for the day they called her to help with the rift to hell.

_ “I can’t imagine what they got themselves into this time. It really doesn’t sound good. In case I don’t come back, and die in a - no doubt - spectacular manner, I want you, Samuel,...” _

Sam had to stop for a second. How did she know he would pick up her diary? Then it dawned on him. That was the reason why the book was lying there so obviously. She had  _ meant _ for him to find it. Sam felt the lump in his throat.

_ “...I want you, Samuel, to inherit everything I have. Except for the painting! That stays where it is! Go, and become the powerful witch, I know you can be! I love you, dear. And again, I don’t blame you for killing me, so don’t blame yourself either. Understood? _

_ “PS: If you tell anyone, I said “I love you”, I will come back as a ghost to haunt you. Yes, that is a threat.” _

Now Sam was full on crying. Eileen tried to hug him but failed due to not having a body.

When he pulled himself back together he flicked through the book one last time. And stopped.

“That’s odd”, Eileen looked over his shoulder, but couldn’t read what it said there.

“What is?”, she asked.

“This part. It’s in Enochian. I think it’s a spell. This is the entry about Mom’s death.” his voice quavered a little when he spoke the last two words.

He studied the lines. Then he slapped the page.

“This! This is the answer!”

Eileen raised her eyebrows, clearly still confused.

“Rowena wrote this, after Jack tried to bring back Mom and failed because there wasn't a body left. So she wrote a spell to, to bring her back without one. It says here you just need the person’s spirit. She didn’t use it on Mom because she never came back as a ghost, but…”

“We can use it on me?”

Sam’s expression lit up.  _ Classic Rowena,  _ he thought.  _ Dead, and still saving the day. _

He went through the list of ingredients.

“It’s relatively easy too. We can use it to bring back Kevin as well! All the ingredients are right here.”

They gathered all the stuff they needed.

When leaving the apartment, Sam snuck one last look at the painting.

“love you too.”, he said. The red haired woman smiled.

Man, this case was frustrating! 

Everywhere Dean went - the police, Angela’s other friends, the car, the security cameras, they all lead to a dead end. He wasn’t even sure what he was dealing with here. A werewolf? Maybe a rugaru? He had no idea.

Today was Thursday, which meant that he had been in this town for three nights now. If he didn’t find anything until tomorrow he’d drive back home. No doubt, Sam must be worried by now.

In the meantime, he got to spend a lot of time with his old friend. It was great! They went bowling and out for food to the best restaurant in town. Hell, they even went to see that new Marvel movie.

And every evening they went back to Lee’s bar and sang karaoke. In that regard, Dean was almost glad he hadn’t solved that damned case yet.

“Where’s your husband by the way? How come we’ve been hanging out this entire time and I haven’t met him yet.”

They said on a bench in the park, drinking beer.

Lee sighed.

“Kyle’s on a business trip. And it takes longer than expected, don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Must be tough”

Lee chuckled. “You have no idea. What about you, by the way? Any luck?”

Why did his thoughts immediately jump back to Cas? He didn’t want anything from that dumb angel who got his Mom and Rowena killed. Yet he couldn’t help thinking about his stupid face and even stupider trench coat.

“Nah”, he said. “No luck. Married life isn’t for me. Not with the job I do. Never ends well.”

Lee nodded. “I’ll drink to that” and so they did.

_ Thursday. Perfect day to resurrect a friend _ , Sam thought.

He had prepared everything. Now they both stood in front of a bathtub, filled with some obscure liquid they had brewed together the past 48 hours.

“So I just... get in?”

Sam made an inviting gesture. Eileen chuckled.

Slowly, she stepped into the tub. The liquid remained entirely still. She lay down.

“I really hope this is gonna work.”

From inside the soup, she gave him an encouraging thumbs up.

Sam took a deep breath and started the incantation.

“ _ Mortuorum oritur rutrum revertitur exspirat incarnatus est oriatur et ed jucatur oriatur et ed jucatur _ ”

He couldn’t watch. Sam noticed some flickering in the candles, but before he could be sure whether it worked or not, he turned around, scared what he might’ve done or failed to do.

Against all his worst fears he heard water being shoved aside by… a body?

Eileen got out of the tub and put on a robe. Sam heard footsteps.

Then he felt the touch of a hand against his shoulder.

“It worked, Sam”,

He grabbed her hand and didn’t let go until he turned around completely, seeing Eileen. Wet hair, red nose and alive.

Then he hugged her tight.

“We’re out of brandy. I’ll go get some from the liquor store, do you wanna come?”

Dean shook his head. He was in the middle of a pool game and he had good chances to win.

So Lee had left alone. That had been half an hour ago. Since then, he had won three more games and drunk his entire celebratory drink. Now he had to pee.

There was a line in front of the men’s restroom so he snuck behind the counter in hopes to find a second, private restroom.

“Today’s my lucky day”, he mumbled when he saw a door that said WC on the other side of the room, where Lee did all his desk work. 

Just as he was about to go back into the tap room to find another victim he could play pool with, he heard something.

He wasn’t sure what it was. It came from another door he hadn’t noticed before.

Maybe it led to a basement?

The sound got louder as he approached it. It sounded like someone was snoring.

The door was locked, but not very securely. Dean picked the lock within thirty seconds.

“Awesome”, Dean was very proud of himself. As he said, today was his lucky day. At least until he stood at the base of the staircase and saw what was causing the noise. Turned out, his second guess from earlier was right. Through a window in a giant metal door that had originally been used as a vault, at the end of the corridor, he could see the monster. It was cowering like a dog, sleeping.

Before he could make sense of the scene he heard someone else coming down the stairs, as if they were in a hurry.

“Dean!”, Lee almost dropped the brandy, so startled was he.

Dean wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.

“What is that doing in your basement?”, he asked, not wanting an answer.

Lee put the brandy down.

“What is what doing in my basement?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Lee. You have a fucking rugaru living in your vault! What is going on? Don’t tell me you killed that girl and fed her to it.”

Lee seemed close to collapsing.

“I didn’t kill Angela.”

“What, so the rugaru killed her then? And it drove her car to the junkyard too? And afterwards it came back and looked itself up in that room?”

Lee shook his head. His eyes were not meeting his.

“It wasn’t like that”

“Then what the hell happened? Why is it still alive?”

Lee faced him with watery eyes.

“That’s Kyle.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “You mean your…”

Lee nodded. And cried.

“It happened a week ago. He seemed fine. Maybe a little under the weather. And then he attacked her. And I didn’t know what to do, so I just watched it happen.”, Lee’s voice cracked.

His husband had disappeared into the woods with Angela’s corpse, his body transformed into that hideous monster. Before he could process what Kyle just did, Lee took the car and drove away. He left it 0n the dumping ground when he realised that it’s owner wouldn’t need it back.

Then he went into the woods to find Kyle and he did. Asleep, blood and uneaten innards surrounding him.

He should’ve killed him right there. Once people transform they never go back, Lee knew that. Kyle was already dead. But he couldn’t bring himself to actually do it.

So he dragged his husband all the way back to the bar - their house would’ve been even further away - and locked him up. And that is where he stayed.

Dean had been quiet the entire time. When it was obvious, Lee wouldn’t say anything more, Dean took the floor.

“You know that that isn’t Kyle anymore, right? Whatever it is, it’s not him. But it is a monster and it kills people. As soon as it wakes up, it'll be hungry again and it will hurt more people. I have to put an end to that.”

“I can still save him!”

“You can’t and you know that!”

“Oh yeah? Your mother got a second chance! Your brother, you! From what you’ve told me, there seems to always be a way to fix things! I can do it too!”

Dean’s chest ached at the thought of his mom. There hadn’t been a way to bring her back. And all those times that he hadn’t been able to save someone. Those hadn’t been fair either. But he knew that that wasn’t what Lee meant.

“I’m sorry.”

“Just help me, please.”

“I really really want to but I -- I just can’t. This is just how it is sometimes. I’m so sorry”

Lee cried.

Dean almost cried too but he had gotten so good at repressing his emotions that he could control himself.

“I won’t let you kill him”

Dean sighed. “I know”

“So what now?”

“You have to kill it yourself.”

Lee’s eyes widened. “I can’t”

“But you have too”

The tears hadn’t fully dried yet, but new ones already started forming.

“Help me save him.”

Dean’s answer was drowned out by a growling coming from behind the door. The rugaru had woken up. And it was hungry.

“Well, time’s running out, you’ll have to make a decision. Either you kill it, or I kill it or it kills everyone in this bar including the two of us and is killed next week when Sammy shows up”

The door shuddered under the weight of the monster throwing itself against it.

Lee looked terrified. Dean turned around, facing the door and backed off. The banging got louder. Then the door got yanked out of it’s frame.

When the cement dust settled, they could see the creature lumping towards them on all fours. Its veins stretched all across what once must have been Kyle’s face, as if they were about to burst out of its skin.

Its eyes were molten grey orbs and its entire body was covered in fur, still glistening with the blood of its first victim. Dean, in one of his brighter moments, grabbed two of the brandy bottles still scattered on the floor and threw one of them after the monster. It howled.

Lee and he ran into the opposite direction, into the vine cellar, the monster close behind them. 

“You kill them with fire!”, he explained while cowering behind a shelf. The shelf fell over. He had just enough time to roll out of the way.

Lee was a few inches in front of him.

They kept dodging. Dean found a rag lying on one of the shelves. He shoved everything but the tip into the brandy bottle.

“Last chance”, he yelled.

“You or me?”

Lee was cornered by the beast. There was nothing left to hide behind.

“Kyle it’s me! Everything will be fine, I promise. Please.”

But Kyle didn’t recognise him. The rugaru closed in.

Dean lit the cloth and threw the molotov cocktail after the monster. It burst into flames. Lee was petrified.

“Let’s go!”

Dan dragged his friend after him. The entire room was flooded with alcohol, they had to get out of there as fast as possible.

Lee didn’t resist but he didn’t help either.

Dean had to carry him up the stairs. When he burst open the door to the taproom the smoke detectors already blared. No one else was left in the building.

Outside, Lorna, greeted them.

“Oh, god, what happened? Are you guys okay?”

Dean sat down his friend on a bench.

“He’s got a concussion”, he lied “I’m alright though”, he lied again.

“Fire department is already on its way”

“You should leave”, Lee said out of the blue.

“What?”, Lorna seemed confused.

“Not you, him. Leave, Dean. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Dean had a lump in his throat.

“Okay. Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t…”

“Just. Leave.”

Dean nodded. He could hear the sirens in the distance. Maybe Lee would forgive him someday. But then again, maybe not.


	2. Peers In A Paw

Hastings, Colorado

Avery Dickens had gotten up early today to go on a run. She had kept this routine up for almost a week now. God, she was so proud of herself.  
She put on her trainers and her light jacket. It was cold outside but she figured she’d be sweating in no time.  
Thrice around the block, she told herself. And she was going to run the entire way, not walk the last lap, like the last few times.  
The loud music blaring through her headphones drowned out all the sound of the passing cars and the rattling of the trains. Avery didn’t notice anything.  
Not the eyes lurking in the shadows between the trees. Not the light grunting, not the heavy steps behind her.  
She finished the second lap. Today, she was going to make it!  
But alas, fate was cruel. Towards the halfway point, on the small trail that led over a meadow from the cole du sac to the train station, she had to stop.  
Her lungs were killing her.  
“So close”, she mumbled out of breath while leaning her arms on her thighs.  
The steps came closer. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the dirty grass shaking. Before she could do anything but scream something jumped at her. It took a huge chunk out of her shoulder. Pain exploded in her arm and through her spine. Blood was leaking out of the hole. Bits of meat sprayed everywhere.  
The beast jumped at her again  
Avery couldn’t see what it was or even where it was. Her vision was blurred. She blindly swayed her other arm at the creature. It bit into her forearm.  
Even more blood. She could feel the hot liquid gushing out. She was beginning to feel light headed.  
Another scream. But no one heard or saw.  
The creature didn’t let go. Her entire body was throbbing as soon as she tried to rip herself loose. There was nothing she could do.  
Crying, she sank to the floor as her body slowly started to suffer the consequences of the insane blood loss.

“Got us a case!”, Eileen danced into the room, her laptop in her hands.  
Dean still couldn’t believe that she was alive. Or that Sam went to Rowena’s place without him. Or that she left his brother everything.  
“Well that’s what you get for not answering your phone for a week, Dean!”, Sam had said, when he complained to him about it.  
“Or your other phone. Or your other other phone. I would’ve loved some help, but if you decide it’s time to be grumpy and leave without even returning the groceries you went shopping for, that’s not on me.”  
Yeah, Sammy was pissed. I guess that’s fair, Dean had thought and just waited until Sam was in a better mood which didn’t take long because he had literally successfully resurrected a person.  
Speaking of, his and Eileen’s first interaction had been on another fucking level.  
Before he got home he only skimmed through the last four or five messages which had been more insults than actual valuable information.  
When he got home, he had found her in the kitchen, alone, before Sammy could brief him.  
“Hey, Sammy! Seems you're already cooking something up but I brought burgers, maybe we can combineAAAAAAARGHHHHH!”, he dropped the bag with the burgers, jumped back and hit his head against the shelf behind him.  
Eileen must’ve seen him from the corner of her eye.  
“Hi, Dean”, she gave him a bright smile and went over to hug him.  
Dean stretched out his arm.  
“No. Okay, no. I’m not dealing with this.”, and had slowly backed off towards the door -- hitting his head on a shelf --, his hand still up to defend himself from Eileen.  
She had watched him with a mixture of confusion and delight as he turned around swiftly and promptly hit his head again, on the door frame this time.  
Two weeks later Eileen sat down between the brothers and presented the cover story of some local newspaper.  
The title read: Local Hero Brutally Killed In Animal Attack  
“Avery Dickens. Died two days ago and she’s the third in a row this month.”  
“And how did the victims die?”  
“Blood loss, mostly. Looks like whatever is killing them does it very slowly.”  
They all exchanged a look.  
“Well, what are we waiting for?”

Cas hadn’t been sure what to do.  
It’s time for me to move on.  
Ever since he said those words they were echoing in his mind. What did they even mean? Within one week, he had lost his son, one of his best friends and… Dean.  
Who was he, without his family? The other angels didn’t want anything to do with him either. He was all alone. Again. Why did this keep happening? Why did he always fail so spectacularly?  
First with Jack. The kid he believed in. His tale couldn’t be over. Kelly would rip his head off had she learned that he didn’t let her son die just once, but twice. And this time with no hope of bringing him back.  
And that he let Jack burn off his soul, ultimately causing Mary’s death.  
And that he couldn’t control his anger when he learned that Belphegor betrayed them, bringing Rowena to sacrifice herself.  
Yes, Cas did blame himself for most of the things that happened, but he also knew that he probably wouldn’t act any differently, even if he could go back and change it.  
Moving on then. But where to?  
Cas picked up the first case almost by accident. He just heard of some strange murders. And he went and solved it. And it felt good to do some good. He realised that while he was trying to figure out what to do next, this was a pretty good way to spend his time. He understood why Dean used hunting to cope. Although that whole thing was a vicious cycle anyway.

When they got to Hastings the first thing they did was go to the police as per usual. They got the victims autopsy report, her address and her contacts.  
“Seems like she still lived with her parents”, Sam noticed.  
“I mean she was like what? Twenty? Twenty-One?”  
“Twenty-two, but yeah. Just came home from college a few months ago.”  
“huh, poor kid”  
“yeah”  
“Should we talk to the parents first?”, Eileen asked.  
Sam nodded. “And afterwards we can check out the scene. It’s only a few minutes away from where she lived”  
“Sounds like a plan, let’s do it”, Dean said, already starting the motor.

Hastings wasn’t a very large town. The Dickens lived at the eastern end, between the railroad and the interstate. Despite that, it was actually quite a nice neighborhood.  
They walked to the front door and rang the doorbell.  
A nice looking, middle aged lady opened up.  
“Hello?”, she said in a quiet voice.  
“Mrs Dickens? Where from the FBI. I’m Agent Miller, these are my colleagues Agent Hillfork and Milliweather, we’re here because of what happened to your daughter, is it okay if we come in?”  
Mrs Dickens squinted her eyes. “It was an animal attack, why’s the FBI sending four agents?”  
Sam and Dean exchanged a look. They were both equally confused.  
“Did you say four?”  
“Yes, Agent McKlarkle is already here.”  
Now they were really confused. Was this case actually of interest to the feds? In all this time, Dean could count the number of times he ran into one on one hand.  
“Well… that -uhh, someone in management must’ve messed up.”  
Had she not just lost her only daughter, Mrs Dickens would’ve probably reacted differently but she just shrugged tiredly and opened the door wide enough to let her new guests in.  
On the way to the living room Dean, Sam and Eileen were involved in a vivid, silent conversation. They had no idea how to proceed, so they would just have to commit.  
“Your colleagues are here”, Mrs Dickens introduced them.  
“colleagues?”, Sam and Dean recognized that voice instantly. In the living room, awkwardly crunched into the armchair sat none other than Castiel.  
“Cas!”  
“Sam?”, Sam was already across the room, basically pulled Cas off his chair and into a hug.  
Dean had almost done the same thing, but just in the nick of time he remembered that he was actually mad at the angel, so he avoided looking at him as best as he could.  
Sam pulled back and cleared his throat.  
“Been a long time, McKlarkle”, he said and patted Cas’s shoulder.  
“Indeed, Agent…”  
“Miller!”, Dean broke off their sweet reunion moment. Partly, because he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to hug Cas or punch his face. Partly, to save their asses in front of the victim's mom who looked more and more concerned by the minute.  
“Right, sorry.”, Sam scratched his nose.  
They all sat down. Mrs Dickens recounted everything she remembered from that morning, which wasn’t much since she had been woken up by the policeman who informed her of her daughter’s passing.  
“She went for runs in the morning. Avery always wanted to be more sporty, but she finally got around to actually doing it.”  
“And was there anything else, you might remember?”, Cas asked “Not specifically that morning but before that. Any new people, strange behaviours Avery picked up, anything that might help us shine a light on this situation?”  
Mrs Dickens shook her head. “This was an animal attack, right?”  
“Yes, but there’s a catalogue of questions we always have to ask just to be save”  
She nodded.  
“This wasn’t an isolated incident. Did you perhaps know anything about the other victims? Paul Martens and Wendy Higgs? Or did your daughter know them?”  
More head shaking.  
“Well, thank you so much for your time, Mrs Dickens”  
As soon as the door closed behind them, Sam started to rant.  
“What are you doing here Cas? Why the hell have you been ghosting us for more than a month?”  
Cas seemed uncomfortable. As did Dean.  
“I knew it. You two had some stupid argument.” He shook his head.  
“I can’t deal with this. Eileen? Let’s check out the scene. You two go do something else.”  
And with that, Sam left. Eileen tagged along which left Dean and Cas alone. It was awkward. Dean missed his friend so much, he felt like throwing up but he also felt angry. Mostly, he felt confused.  
“I’m sorry, I should…”, Cas pointed in a random direction “go”  
Dean nodded. He wasn’t sure what would happen should he open his mouth so he kept it shut.  
At that moment they both got a text message from Sam.  
Meet at Sonic in an hour. If either of you doesn’t show up, I swear I will find you and kick your stupid ass.  
“So Sam’s pissed.”  
Cas snorted.  
“Was that woman Eileen Leahy? The one who’s…”  
“Dead? Yeah that’s her. Sam brought her back.”  
Cas nodded. He had so many questions, but he didn’t know where to start or whether to start at all.  
Dean’s insides turned upside down.  
He cleared his throat.  
“Well, I’ll go look at the autopsy reports.”, and then he left.

They all sat around a table. Dean winked at the waitress. She blushed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas nervously shifting on his chair. Good.  
He could also see Sam role his eyes but he decided to ignore that.  
“Alright, we checked out the place and there was definitely a struggle, all the grass was trampled but apart from that we couldn’t find much.”  
“No hex bags, no runes…”  
“... no crop circles”, Eileen added.  
Sam snickered.  
“What about you?”  
“I took a deeper look at the autopsy report. It adds up with what you were saying. The thing that killed them definitely took its time. Almost like it was playing with them. And there are bite marks. A lot of ‘em, so whatever we’re looking for has fangs.”  
Sam nodded. Cas still hadn’t said anything.  
Dean layed out the footage. Eileen took one quick look and her expression went blank.  
“Those were from hellhounds.”  
“Looks like it”, Sam nodded and squeezed her hand reassuringly.  
“Are you sure?”, Dean asked.  
“Have you ever been dragged to hell by a hellhound?”, she shot back.  
“Yes”  
Eileen stared at him.  
He shook his head.  
“Long story”  
“So we’re looking for a hellhound?”, Cas asked.  
“But hellhounds usually only hunt people who made a deal with a demon. How were there three consecutive murders? Did they all make a deal at the same time?”  
Sam shrugged. “We encountered one that ran loose before. Maybe the same thing happened again? I don’t know.”  
“If so, how do we find it?”  
They weren’t sure. It was pretty hard to track something that was invisible and had no specific amo.  
Just then, a girl came storming into the restaurant.  
“Help!”, she screamed, the hunters were already up and at the girls side by the time the door slammed shut.  
“What’s wrong?”, Cas asked.  
“Something is chasing me, I don’t… I…”, she burst into tears.  
Cas and Sam exchanged a worried look. Eileen was already at the door, looking outside.  
“See anything?”, Sam asked.  
Eileen didn’t respond. Sam remembered that she couldn’t hear him.  
The waitress gave the girl a glass of water and Cas helped her sitting down at the bar.  
Then he also took a look outside. Nothing. Dean and Eileen went to look for any sort of clues.  
“Dean!”, Eileen waved.  
He went over to see what she had found.  
“Yep, definitely a hellhound.”, he said as he saw the print in the mud. It was that of a giant fucking wolf mauler.  
They went back inside. Their faces confirming their suspicions.  
By now the girl had calmed down enough to talk.  
“What’s your name?”, Dean asked as nicely as he could.  
“Helen Ferguson”, she pronounced her last name weird.  
“Well Helen - can I call you Helen? - “ she nodded  
“Great, so I’m Dean, this is my brother Sam and that’s Eileen and you’re in luck because you just so happened to run into the right restaurant.”  
Eileen nodded reassuringly and Sam rolled his eyes at the obvious exclusion of Castiel who just kind of stood there awkwardly.  
They exchanged looks, and Sam had trouble not bursting out laughing. But then he remembered that there was a traumatized girl sitting there and he restrained himself.  
“What do you mean?”, Helen asked.  
Eileen picked up the conversation.  
“Can you tell us what happened just now? Something was chasing you, right?”  
The girl looked down to her knees and nodded.  
“I was walking home from a friends house and I felt something behind me. And an animal started howling right next to me and I started running and I tripped and I -- I got back up and I saw that there were lights in here so I stormed in and then it was suddenly gone. I felt it breathing down my neck and then it was just… gone.”  
Eileen nodded understandingly.  
“Did you see anything?”  
Helen shook her head.  
“This might come out of nowhere but did you ever make a deal with some creepy looking person around ten years ago? When you were like…. ten?”  
Dean wondered if cross road demons even made deals with children that young.  
Helen gave him a weird look, then shook her head.  
“Who are you guys?”  
“FBI. We’re investigating a series of animal attacks.”  
Sam nodded to confirm Cas’s claim.  
“Animal attacks?”  
“Yeah, do you know either of these people?”, and he rattled down the list of victims.  
Helen shook her head for the first two but the third one jagged her memory.  
“I mean everyone knew Avery. First thing she did when she came back from college was save two kids from drowning. But I never interacted with her.”  
They remembered the head line in the paper.  
So they had a rogue hellhound to kill and no idea where it would turn up next. What fun!

Back at the motel, Dean still pretended like Cas didn’t exist and turned on the TV. Helen, who had insisted on coming with them for protection, joined him.  
Eileen, Sam and Cas went through the lore, with no luck.  
“I bet Rowena would have some sort of tracking spell. God, I miss calling her.”  
Cas froze up. “I’ll get… ice”, he proclaimed and walked out the door.  
Eileen and Sam shared a silent conversation. She gestured for him to go after the angel. Sam shook his head.  
He’s obviously sad and needs a friend.  
Well, he should’ve not ghosted me for five weeks because Dean wanted a divorce.  
They do act like hormonal teenagers, don’t they?  
Yes, and I’m not dealing with that.  
Come on, we both know that it’s the right thing to do.  
“Urgh, fine. You’re right”, Sam said out loud and went after his friend.

“Cas?”, he found him staring holes in the ice machine.  
“You okay?”  
Cas blinked then focused on him.  
“Yeah, I’m fine”, he said sarcastically.  
“You know, Cas, I don’t blame you for Rowena’s death or mom’s for that matter”  
“Dean does… and I do”  
“Well you shouldn’t. I mean, I am the one who actually put a knife in her and mom… we all should've seen the signs.”  
“We both know this conversation won’t lead anywhere.”  
Sam sighed. He knew. Telling people they weren’t guilty was the one thing. Them actually accepting that was something completely different. He wasn’t any better.  
“Well, I just want to say that I’m pissed because you didn’t respond to, well, anything. You can’t just do that, not in our line of work, you know? Not with all the shit that’s been going on.”  
“I know Sam, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t… I needed some alone time. And Dean...”  
Sam clenched his teeth.  
“Screw Dean! When Chuck opened that gate to hell, I already lost a son and one of my closest friends, I don’t want to lose anyone else.  
“You know, only a few months ago our family was huge, we had mom and Jack and Maggie and all the others and Rowena and well, the three of us. Like always! And now it’s just me and Dean again.  
“And that was fine fifteen years ago but that’s just not cutting it anymore, so I don’t care about your and Dean’s fight, you better check in with me on a regular basis or I promise, I’ll put a tracker on you.”  
The words stopped flooding out of Sam’s mouth. It felt so good to finally say them out loud. Cas didn’t meet his eyes, but he chuckled.  
“That is one of the nicest ways I've ever been threatened.”  
Sam snickered, Cas looked at him.  
“So we’re clear?”, Sam asked.  
“Yeah, we’re clear.”  
Cas tapped the ice machine and squinted his eyes.  
“Do you have something I can put the ice in? I forgot and now I’ll look like an idiot when I come back.”  
“Cas, no one actually thought you were getting ice”  
The angel sighed. “I guess that’s fair.”

“Guys, I think I have a lead!”, Eileen welcomed them back. In front of her lay a map of Hastings. Sam leaned over her shoulder and the others, even Dean, gathered around her.  
“So I marked all the spots where people were attacked by the hellhound”, she said and pointed at the red markings on the map. They were assembled in a near perfect square.  
“And they are all less than three miles apart and the centre is this”, she pointed out a rectangle right in between the dots.  
“And what’s that?”, Dean asked.  
Eileen pulled up her tablet and showed them a picture of the building. It looked abandoned.  
“It’s the old town hall. They built a new one in the seventies while this one has been empty.”  
“So the hell hound is there?”, Sam asked.  
“I don’t know but there’s a police report about a homeless woman that apparently took up camp there. Law enforcement tried to throw her out, but so far they’ve been unsuccessful.”  
“You think, she could be the one who the hellhound’s after.”, Cas realised.  
“And it looks like the hound can’t get to her, so it went and killed others when it got bored.”, Sam added.  
“But what can hold off a hellhound?”, Dean asked.  
Sam shrugged.  
“Maybe she’s a hunter or a witch and got a hold of an angel blade or something?”, Eileen speculated.  
Cas found it strange how quiet Helen had been the entire time. And how unbothered she had seemed. While the others were spinning a hypothesis she had sat down and stared at the TV screen on the other side of the room and whistled quietly.  
Now she had caught wind of his stare, looked back at him and seemed to wake up from her disengagement.  
“What, so that thing isn’t after me?”, she asked.  
“Doesn’t seem that way but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t come back or hurt even more people. We have to get rid of it now.”  
Dean, nodded agreeingly until he noticed it was Cas who said it and Cas didn’t exist. Sam shook his head in silent disappointment.  
“Cas’s right.”, Eileen agreed.  
“Let’s go, find this woman. The monster can’t be far from its prey”  
As she said it, there was suddenly a banging at the door. They all flinched and got their angel blades out with the same motion.  
“Glasses!”, Sam proclaimed and passed the ones lying on the table to the others.  
“How did it find us? And why?”, Dean asked in disbelief as he put on the eyewear.  
But Cas stared at Helen again.  
“It’s you. You called it. Just now, when you whistled!”  
“I don’t know what you mean, why would I call a monster that was trying to kill me?”  
“Yeah, come on Cas, that’s ridiculous.”, Dean agreed.  
Cas squinted. The door ached. It wouldn’t hold much longer.  
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird that she just happened to run into the one diner in town where she would find four hunters who would immediately know what she was talking about?”, but then the door broke down and Dean didn’t have time to respond.  
The hound jumped him first. The angel blade scratched the beast’s snout. It howled and layed of him. Cas was sure he saw it locking eyes with Helen before it attacked again. Something was very wrong here.  
They fought it off, encircling it from four sides. It threw itself at Cas and he went down the hound over him as it tried to get a hold of one of his body parts. Cas's arm with the knife couldn’t reach the creature's body so he had to improvise and try to strangle the beast. Suddenly, the heavy weight was gone. Dean had tackled the thing.  
Now he was on top of the hellhound. One of its legs hit him so hard on the elbow he instinctively let go of the blade. It fell on the floor, klincking.  
Sam wanted to interfere, but the wound in his shoulder from when he shot Chuck started hurting out of nowhere and the pain was so strong he had to stop right where he stood and fell to his knees.  
Before it could do anything else, the hellhound went stiff and became lifeless. Eileen grunted as she pulled the blade out of the hellhound’s head.  
“That felt good.”, she murmured.  
Sam rushed to help up his brother but Cas turned back to Helen who sat on the chair, seeming not at all shocked until the angel looked at her.  
“Did you get it?”, she asked.  
“Who are you?”  
She didn’t respond to that and got out of her chair. Cas held up her hand, warning her to stay back. When she didn’t, he pulled out his flaskman of holy water. She hesitated.  
“You're a demon.”, Cas stated. It wasn't a question.  
“What?”, Sam struggled to keep up.  
“Wow, guys, I’m impressed you figured it out so quickly.”, Helen said sarcastically.  
“Which one? Do we know you?”, it was Sam again, asking the question.  
She rolled her eyes.  
“I don’t know Moose, do you?”  
“Crowley?”  
“Hello, boys.”, Crowley smiled as he revealed his red eyes, for just a second.  
“If I’m perfectly honest, I’m shocked you didn’t figure it out when I introduced myself. Hellen Ferguson. Come on, it’s right there in the name..”  
Dean wasn’t able to connect the dots.  
Crowley was dead, he died trying to lock up Lucifer and even if he was alive, why would he command a hellhound to attack random citizens and them specifically? They had never been best buds, but gotten along quite nicely right up until he met his end.  
“What… how?”  
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? What the hell have you been doing to piss off God so bad, he starts resurrecting guys like me to give you a big finale before he squashes everything?”  
“Wait, you’re working for Chuck?”  
“That's a generous term. It’s more like he tells me what to do and I physically can’t stop myself from doing it.”  
“So you’re his slave?”, Sam guessed.  
Crowley smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes.  
“I don’t like calling it that.”  
Sam nodded.  
“You’re friends with her?”, Eileen asked. She had never met him before.  
“Him, actually and yes, me and Moose go way back, don’t we?”  
Sam rolled his eyes.  
“So what was all this about then? I thought Chuck was done with us? Why is he sending his puppets after us and what’s the deal with the hellhound?”, Dean asked.  
Crowley chuckled and sat back in the chair, crossing his legs and leaning back.  
“You thought that minor apocalypse was all he had in store? No, boys, this is far from over. The finale season has only just begun! As long as you two are still alive, the show goes on.”  
Dean felt like punching a wall. Everytime he thought it was over, God messed with his life again. And again and again and again. It got old really fucking fast.  
Sam groaned as well.  
“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain this whole hellhound situation.”  
“Well that I can’t tell you about. Literally. My mouth will catch on fire.”  
“Maybe you should just deal with that and still tell us”  
“Well, maybe you should all go to hell”, he shot back. And then he winked, which caught Cas in particular really off guard.  
“Time’s up, I have to go back but before that, I have to get that Mcguffin from you. I believe God called it the Equalizer?”  
“No.”  
“Not like I have a choice. So where is it? Wrong answers only, please.”  
Dean shook his head.  
Crowley sighed. “It’s in the Impala, isn’t it?”  
The impending silence spoke for itself.  
“Okay, I’ll go get it. Feel free to stop me.”  
And they tried, but being resurrected must’ve given the demon a power up, because they couldn’t do it.  
Sam got the chance to stab him from behind once, but he hesitated a moment too long. He already killed Rowena, he didn’t want to have both Macleods’s blood on his hands, whether they minded or not.  
Crowley blasted him away and he crashed into a lamp pole.  
“Sorry, Moose”  
When he finally got the Equalizer, they all were lying on the ground, wounded and exhausted.  
“Well, I would love to say farewell, but I’m sure we’ll see each other again. So long, my friends.”, and he disappeared.

“Well that was… unexpected.”  
Cas picked up his angel blade and put it back up his sleeve. Then he helped up Sam. He whaled. The shot wound still hurt and being pushed against the street light didn’t exactly make it better.  
“Never thought I’d see him again.”  
The angel lent Dean a hand but he ignored it and got up, groaning like an old man.  
They went back inside.  
Dean let out his frustration by kicking the chair Crowley had been sitting on.  
“How is it that after all this time, we’re still being controlled? What is the point of anything we do? And now we don’t even have the one fucking thing that gave us the advantage over him. That we could’ve used to blow his brains out”  
“Dean…”  
“No Sammy, I don’t need some inspirational mumbo jumbo from you. What I need is Chuck’s head on my wall! I don’t give a crap about how much it takes, I will take that motherfucker down and if it’s the last damn thing I do!”  
“No, I was going to agree with you. God’s gotta go.”  
“WELL GOOD THEN. I’m sorry, it is very hard to climb down from this energy.”  
“Eat an apple.”, Eileen suggested and tossed him one.  
“Should we still check out that town hall?”, Cas asked.  
Sam snipped his fingers.  
“I bet that’s why Crowley called the hellhound here when we were getting close to the answer. So we wouldn’t check it out! Maybe whoever she is has some dirt on Chuck. That’s why he sent the hound after her.”  
“Yeah, but why would he do that? Couldn’t he just snap her out of existence?”  
“I don’t know, Dean, I’m just tossing ideas.”  
“Only way to find out is by looking into it”, Eileen decided. And that settled it.

The old town hall was huge. They couldn’t detect anyone from the outside so they went in and split into teams to cover more ground.  
Sam and Dean, guns ready, searched through the corridors.  
Sam waited for the right moment to say something but his brother was quicker: “I know what you want to say, Sammy. And no, I won’t forgive Cas, I can’t.”  
Sam sighed. Of course, he thought.  
“You know what? Fine. We’ve been over this a bazillion times, I don’t care anymore. But you can’t cut him out of your life, because I’m sure as hell not gonna cut him out of mine. So he’s coming back with us after this is over and you'll just have to deal with that. Chuck’s apparently still out there, doing whatever and I won’t let my family get hurt because you refuse to deal with your trauma and just like to lash out instead.”  
Dean didn’t respond. Deep down, he probably knew Sammy was right, but he would never admit that.  
Up ahead, they heard the sound of a door smashing shut. Dean looked at Sam. He nodded and they both started sprinting towards the noise.  
At the end of the next corridor they saw someone escaping through an exit to the left.  
“Wait!”, Sam yelled, but of course, the person didn’t wait, so they had to chase them down a flight of stairs and through a bunch of abandoned office rooms. They split up. Dean took off to the left and ran down the main hallway. He caught up with the fugitive when they slammed into each other because she suddenly appeared in front of him. Sam came after her leaning in the door frame catching his breath. Dean hadn’t even seen the passage because of an old filing cabinet standing right in front of it.  
Still a little shaky from the crash he got back up, pointing the gun at the woman. She had raven black hair… and a spear?  
“Kaia?”

They all met in the entrance hall. Kaia had reluctantly accompanied them.  
“So you’re the one God’s so afraid of, he sends a hellhound and a dead demon after?”  
“I’ve only seen the hellhound”, Kaia replied. “But it was too much of a coward to actually try and kill me.”, one hand rested on her spear. If that thing could hurt an archangel, it could definitely do some damage to a dog.  
“So Crowley was really just there to distract us from her.”, Cas murmured to himself.  
“And get the Equalizer, I guess.”  
Sam’s eyes were still on the spear: “How did you get that back? It was in the bunker with us the entire time, since we last met.”  
That made her laugh. “I stole it back, obviously. Do you know how easy it is to break into that thing as a  
human? 95% of your protective spells and tracking devices only work on the supernatural. I literally walked through the front door in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping and no one noticed.”  
Eileen cracked up a little. Cas took over the investigation.  
“Burglary aside, what makes you so important that Chuck wants you killed and doesn’t just zap you out of existence? No offence.”  
Kaia shrugged. “None taken.”  
Her eyes darted around the room. “Do you still have that half angel with you?”  
Cas’s eyes dimmed.  
“He died.”, Dean’s expression didn’t give away anything.  
“Shit.”  
“Why?”  
All the confidence she had displayed previously seemed to be sucked out of Kaia. Now she just looked like any other scared teenager.  
“Something is happening to my world. I saw it in my dreams. I saw the other Kaia screaming...”  
“Hold -- hold on, Kaia? You mean our Kaia? She died when...”  
“She’s alive. Barely. But she won’t be much longer. Something is coming. The end. Or the beginning of an end. My world is dying.”  
“What does that mean? That thing was already a stinkhole. There isn’t much that could die there, apart from that freaking giant.”  
She pierced Dean with her stare.  
“My world was fine. But now it’s...”  
“And Kaia’s still trapped there? We have to get her out! We have to call Jody.”, Sam had his phone already ready to go.  
Kaia scoffed.  
“Unless you have any archangel grace, there’s no way we can open a portal. Your Jack was my last hope.”  
“So is that what God doesn’t want us to find out? That the Bad Place finally beating the dust? Or is there something else?”  
“I don’t know why God should be after me. I don’t know anything, I just want to be left alone.”  
“What if Chuck is the one destroying her world?”, Eileen threw her thesis into the room.  
“Yeah, but why?”  
“Doesn’t matter anymore anyway. I can see it burning and I can do nothing but sit here.”, Kaia wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. She seemed tired.  
“Do you want to come back with us to the bunker?”, Sam asked. He couldn’t just let this kid go off on her own.  
“No, thank you. I’ll manage. But if anything happens, call me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next one comes tommorrow (I have one through five written already).  
> I'm sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.  
> Merry Christmas everyone!


	3. The Golden Rule

The man was drinking a cocktail, leaning back in his deck chair while watching the humans bathe in the pool. He had ordered one of the employees to scrub his feet. The others were busy cleaning up the bloodstains from when he blew that barista up.  
“You missed a spot!”, he complained. The human whimpered and rushed to get a fresh rag.  
A young woman came over from the hotel lobby.  
“Well, you really settled into the whole maniacal super villain charade, haven’t you?”  
“Did you manage to distract them?”  
“Doubt it. I think they spoke to her anyway.”  
He held out his hand. From it, a snake slithered its way into existence. settled around the woman’s neck and started squeezing.  
“I so generously bring you back and the first thing you do is fucking up your mission.”  
“What can I say, death really put things into perspective. Mainly, that I prefer being dead to being your puppet.”  
She could see that the man got angry. He lifted his arm up just a little, forcing her to do the same. Then he made her slap herself for a solid ten minutes.  
“Why are you hitting yourself?”, he asked repeatedly while snickering to himself.  
“Feeling better?”; she asked when he finally got tired of the same joke, especially because she didn’t give him any kind of response.  
“It’s no fun, when you don’t try to fight it.”  
“Oh no, that must be so hard for you!”  
He made her slap herself once again.  
Finally, he sighed.  
“Did you at least get the Equalizer, like I ordered you to?”  
She rolled her eyes at the name, but he decided to ignore that blatant disrespect for the time being.  
“Yes.”, she took it from her back pocket.  
In one fast motion she released the safe guard aimed at his head and took a shot.  
Without blinking he redirected the bullet and flicked his tongue in disapproval.   
“Careful, you could’ve really hurt yourself.”  
“Worth a try.”, she shrugged and threw him the weapon.  
“Good”  
He picked up a stack of paper next to him and handed it to her.  
“I have a few things planned, I expect you to be off script by tomorrow and no more ad libbing like today or I’ll find something more painful than a few slaps.”  
She inspected the stack. It must’ve held at least five thousand pages, all filled with way to detailed descriptions and truly terrible dialogue.  
“You want Dean to say ‘You’re not even that hot’, while he burns me with holy oil and me to respond with: I’m like buffalo hot wings, bitch?”  
“You got a problem with that?”  
“Yes. A) I would never say something that… humiliating, b) I really doubt you can get Dean to say his line at the exact right time and c) that isn’t even a witty comeback and would also make way more sense for an angel to say. Because of the wings?”  
The man was angry again but he restrained himself from doing that whole Why-are-you-hitting-yourself?-bit once more if only, because she was still holding his precious script.  
“Just do as you’re told, Crowley. Not like you have a choice, anyway.”

They encountered Crowley at least once a week. They had no idea why he was God’s go-to-badguy, but whenever they found a case Crowley was connected to it in some way or another.  
“We should just stop taking the bait. No more cases, just stay home and do movie nights every night.”, Dean suggested on their way back to the bunker when they all sat there, covered in ghoul.  
“We can’t.”, Sam replied soberly.  
“Yeah? Why not?”  
“Because people still need to be saved.”  
Quiet snoring came from the backseat Eileen was sitting in.  
“This is stupid.”  
“I know, but that’s what we do. Saving people, huntings things. The family business.”  
“I’m getting really tired of that catch phrase.”  
“Ha, yeah”  
Sam rubbed his nose. Cas didn’t participate in the conversation and stared out the window. He and Dean still weren’t on speaking terms, which got more and more ridiculous by the second - and it had literally been weeks - but Sam had given up on reasoning with his brother.  
“Speaking of catchphrases, what about Crowley’s?”  
“You mean how he tells us to go to hell like at least once per fight?”  
Sam frowned. “Yeah that one. And he winks everytime he says it.”  
“I bet it’s one of the things Chuck told him to say. The guy talks complete bullshit like ninety-five percent of the time.”  
“Yeah, I mean I’m like buffalo hot wings, bitch?, What the hell was that?”  
“I actually thought that one was pretty badass.”  
“All those old action movies really melted your brain.”, Sam said.  
Cas snorted.  
“Oh, you think this is funny?”, Dean asked provocatively and promptly almost ran into a road sign.  
“Watch the road, dude”  
Dean made an angry face.  
“Still don’t know why we have to bring him along to everything.”  
“I can hear you”, Cas mumbled.  
“Not splitting up the team with Chuck out there, waiting for the perfect opportunity for some big finale.”  
Dean rolled his eyes.  
“What if he’s serious?”, Cas asked.  
“Who, Crowley?”  
The angel nodded.  
“About us going to hell.”  
Sam thought about it. Maybe Cas was right. Maybe Crowley tried to give them some secret message. He knew more about God’s plan than they did. On the other hand, maybe this was also part of Chuck’s galaxy brain plan to fuck with them. They still shared a connection through their wound. It hadn’t healed yet. After two and a half months, it still looked fresh and caused him pain whenever he moved his arm too fast or was too close to Crowley.  
Sam started feeling like Harry freakin Potter.  
He shared his concerns with the others.  
“Do we have any other leads on how to beat him?”  
They didn’t.  
“Hell it is, then.”

It really shouldn’t be this easy to get to the underworld. A day later and they were ready to go. Eileen wasn’t coming with them, not that that was a surprise.  
“I meant it, when I said, I’m not going back there.”  
She would hold up the spell by keeping the fire going.   
“You ready?”, Sam asked.   
They all nodded.  
Eileen started the incantation.  
The next thing either of the boys saw was a dully lit brick covered hallway. Torches flickered as they silently passed through the passages. From far away they heard screams of the damned souls being tortured.  
Dean breathed heavily. He tried not to think about the forty years he had spent down here. But repression didn’t work quite as well when you were directly confronted with some of your worst memories.  
He side-eyed Cas. He was the one who got him out. He was only following orders. But he saved me. But he killed mom.  
“Why is it so quiet? I thought hell was in disarray because they didn’t have a leader, why isn’t it more chaotic and loud?”  
The suspicion in Cas’s voice was heard to miss. Something was wrong here. They turned left at the end of the next hallway and stood in front of a gigantic door. The ornaments depicted a thousand different ways to torment humans and monsters alike.   
“Looks important enough.”, Dean was ready to push it open.  
“Wait, we don’t know what’s on the other side.”  
Dean shrugged. “We don’t know what we’re looking for anyway. And you know what the one good thing about being Chuck’s favourite toys is, Sammy? That his ass wants us to have some epic final battle before we die. Does this seem grand enough for you? No, so we won’t die here. This is just some stupid door in hell and I’ll push it open and we’ll survive whatever’s on the other side.”  
Demons were on the other side, obviously. Heaven knows what the hunters were expecting.   
They had to be somewhere and it turned out that somewhere was right here, behind this gigantic door.  
But for some reason, they didn’t attack, just had hushed conversations between themselves. The cavern was gigantic and the ceiling at least a hundred feet above them, colored in dark blue and covered in constellations, mimicking the night’s sky. Sparks floated through the air, illuminating everything in a pleasant orange tone.  
If they hadn’t still heard the screams in the background, they wouldn’t have believed they were still in hell.  
“Samuel William Winchester? Dean Winchester? The angel Castiel? May I ask you to follow me? The queen requests your presence.”  
The demon looked like an emo teenager. He made an inviting gesture to follow him.  
“All will become clear.”, was all he said.

“I say we bail now, before it’s too late”  
Sam shushed Dean.  
“It’s already too late.”, Cas whispered.  
“Shut up. Both of you. Guys, I wanna know who she is.”  
“Why?”  
“Why not? I like to know things. You’re the one who thought opening that door was a good call.”  
“Well, I take it back.”, Dean said. He wasn’t inclined to meet the next ruler of hell. If they were in luck, she would spare them. If they weren’t, she was one of Chuck’s pawns and they were up for a thousand years of torture fun.  
Before they could reach any sort of consensus the demon led them to a final entryway.  
“She’ll be right with you”, he promised then vanished.  
“Great.”  
Dean started twiddling with his fingers.  
“Any ideas who she is?”, Sam asked Cas.  
“No. All the Princes of Hell are dead. So are Lilith and Lucifer and Belphegor never got his chance, so…”  
The door flunk open spraying bright sparks. In the white smoke a woman appeared, her bright red hair illuminated by the torch light, her arms stretched wide open.  
“Hello boys”

She was wearing a dark green dress with lots of golden highlights woven into it and graciously pinned up hair. She looked even more like a witch than she ever did in life.  
“Rowena? You’re alive?”  
She came down the steps to meet them snickering to herself.  
“Oh no, dear, I’m quite dead. Pretty much everyone here is. When I closed the fissure, it did cost me my life, and my soul went to hell. Big surprise.”  
“It’s good to see you again”, Dean said and went in for a hug after Sam was done strangling her and almost killing her again.  
Rowena smiled.  
“As it is you, darling. Let’s go inside, shall we?”  
Rowena led the way to her throne room but she didn’t go to sit in her throne and they instead took a seat around a small coffee table next to a fireplace.  
Cas looked around “So the demons just... handed you the throne?”  
The witch put him off with a wave off her hand.  
“No one here hands you anything for free. I took it. Do you kids want anything? Wine? Water? Chocolate?”  
As soon as she mentioned the food and drink, demons appeared, prepared to serve them whatever their hearts desired. Dean and Sam accepted happily and even Cas reluctantly took the glass of Château he was handed.  
“So, what brings me the honor of your visit?”, Rowena finally asked.  
Sam shifted in his chair.  
“Chuck’s not done with us. We have no idea what he’s planning. He brought Crowley back to life”, he recounted their time in Hastings and what dark Kaia had said about the bad place.  
Rowena nodded. “I have my pawns keeping tabs on my son.”  
“That’s good.”  
“Oh, I’m afraid Fergus is quite annoyed by it.”  
Her eyes were shimmering. Sam knew how bad she had handled her son’s death. Even though it happened for all the wrong reasons, she was glad to see him alive again.  
Cas cleared his throat.  
“He is the one who told us to come here. We didn’t know why, but it makes sense now.”  
“I bet he wanted you to help us.”, added Dean. Sam was surprised that he even acknowledged what Cas said at all. Rowena must’ve sensed the tension between the two as well. He and the witch locked eyes for just a moment, non-audibly making fun of the others.  
At last, Rowena leaned back in her seat. “Some things never change. Even in death you boys still call me for help.”  
Sam smirked. He remembered her diary. He kept it in his bedside drawer. Not, that he ever really read it - that still felt like an invasion of her privacy - but it made him feel like a part of his friend was still there.  
“So, can you tell us anything?”  
Rowena sighed. “I know that Chuck is currently residing at a spa resort in northern Mexico on the West Coast. He enslaved all the employees and some of the guests. He’s mass producing cheap scripts to distract you and he seems to still suffer from that wound you inflicted him with.”  
“Distract us? From what?”  
She blinked a bit longer than necessary.  
“He is not just destroying one world. He’s destroying all of them.”  
Silence.  
Dean blinked in disbelief. “Say what now?”  
Rowena faced him. “Your friend Eileen was right. He is currently in the process of killing that Kaia’s planet. But not just that one, he’s destroying them all. Every world he ever made.”  
They all looked at each other, just one question on their mind.  
“Why?”  
Rowena shook her head. “Because Chuck is a frustrated writer who wrote himself into a corner and instead of finding a way out he decided to take every page of every draft he ever made, put them in a trashcan and blow it up.”  
Dean couldn’t focus on what Rowena was saying anymore. He felt that blinding rage bubbling up inside him again and he didn’t know how to stop it.  
He needed something to fight, something, anything, right now. His breath got heavier by the second, his fingers tensed. It took all his mental strength to not fall into a tantrum and smash random objects, starting with that stupid wine glass he was still holding.  
Through the fog of his muddled thoughts he heard someone saying his name.  
“Dean?!”  
It was Cas. Shortly afterwards he realised that the others were also trying to get his attention. He cleared his throat. The sinking feeling had stopped. At least somewhat.  
“I’m okay.”, he lied.  
They didn’t buy it.  
“You looked like you were blacking out, dude.”  
“I’m fine, Sammy.”, Dean reassured him, while avoiding Cas’s concerned eyes as best he could.  
“How do we kill him?”, he asked Rowena.  
“I don’t think you can.”  
Dean punched his arm rest. “Damn it, Rowena, there must be some way we can fuck over that son of a bitch!”  
She blinked. He hadn’t even noticed how loud he had gotten.  
“Sorry.”  
“I get that you’re frustrated, but even if we found a way to end him…”  
“We would also have to kill Amara. To maintain the balance.”, Cas finished her sentence. He wouldn’t meet her eyes the entire time they were here.  
She didn’t seem to notice.  
“Exactly.”  
So, still nothing. At least, they now knew what Chuck was up to. It was a start.  
“wait, you said he was still suffering from the gunshot. Does that mean he’s weak? Or at least weaker?”, Sam speculated.  
Cas apparently had an epiphany of some kind and snapped his fingers.   
“That’s why he sent that hellhound after the girl instead of just deleting her.”  
“Dude, you’re right! That makes way more sense, now!”  
Rowena joined in: “And that’s why he needs so much time shutting down other worlds. He has to do it manually, one Doomsday at a time.”  
The boys sat there, stunned at their revelation. That didn’t bring them any closer to beating God, but the fact that he couldn’t just vanish them if they got close was a relief.  
“Oh, and one more thing!”, Rowena suddenly said.  
“Oh what, you boys really thought I didn’t have some more aces up my sleeve?”  
“What is it?”  
She grinned and pulled a piece of paper literally from her sleeve.  
It read:   
Mauler’s Burgercafé,   
Ottumwa, Iowa 52501  
USA  
“Restaurant recommendations?”, Dean asked jokingly.  
Rowena’s mischievous smile made him feel uncomfortable.  
“The place where a certain archangel has had lunch everyday for the past nine weeks.”  
“no way, Michael?”, Sam was intrigued. He tried getting a hold of the guy, ever since he got out of the cage either to stop him, should he try starting a war and thus creating apocalypse world 2.0 or to get him on their side and have him spill some damning information about Chuck. No luck.  
“That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Rowena, you save our butts, every time.”  
Her response was cut short because Sam surprised her with a hug. She seemed touched.  
“Sammy’s right. You’re amazing.”  
“Am I not? Well, what are you waiting for, get moving! I set up the pawns, now it’s your turn to play for a checkmate.”  
They said their goodbyes to the new queen of hell. Sam had already dissolved, but she signaled Dean and Cas to hold on:  
“What’s going on with the two of you?”  
They both looked to the ground, like school kids being scolded.  
“You had a fight, didn’t you?”  
Dean looked off to the side. Cas didn’t know what to say, this break-up wasn’t his choice after all. And the only reason he had even come back was because of Sam. And here they were, still not even speaking with one another, unless Dean had one of his moments, where he suddenly forgot that they weren’t in fact speaking with one another. It was a nightmare.  
Rowena was still waiting for an answer. When it was clear she wouldn’t receive one she exhaled a tired, sharp breath.  
“I don't have many regrets, but the few I do still haunt me.” She started.  
“Making Napoleon so short was just bitchy. Telling Mick Jagger he had no future when I dumped him. And, well, everything with dear Fergus. Then one day, you die, you go to hell, they make you queen, and... you can't make it right anymore. So whatever you two have going on, fix it!”  
She waved with her hand and they started dissolving too.  
“Oh and Castiel? I have eyes, you know? And I do notice when people try to avoid them! I just wanted to say, thank you for screwing up the plan. Dying was the best thing that ever happened to me!”

“mmhh, this is the best burger I’ve ever had. I know, I technically don’t have to eat, but…”  
“Enjoy yourself.”  
“Don’t mind if I do.”  
The waiter came bringing a gigantic pizza and a shit ton of fries. Adam’s eyes lit up.   
“Thank you!”, the waiter grinned, assuming he wouldn’t eat half the things he brought him. But Adam didn’t share his concerns.  
“man, I haven’t had fast food in like ten years, this is the best day of my life!”  
Michael smiled. Over the past ten years of being stuck with only one another they had come to an arrangement. They shared a body that both of them could control. He liked the human which was surprising because he didn’t like most things.  
“So now that we’re out, do you have any plans other than... eating?”  
Adam shook their head.   
“Not like I had much of a life before all this. My mom’s dead, I don’t think any of my friends still think about me and I don’t really have any other family.”  
“You have the Winchesters.”  
Adam snorted. “Yeah, right. Last time I checked they let me rot in hell for ten years. We’re not exactly close. You?”  
“I suppose I could go back to heaven and help my brethren...”  
“Not really in the mood, huh?”  
“You could say that.”  
Adam started digging into the fries. He poured the entire tube of ketchup over it. It was a mess.  
“Well for the time being let’s just enjoy ourselves. Perhaps we could pick up some day job.”  
“A day job?”, Michael asked incredulously.  
“Yeah, I already blew all my money on this. And I want new clothes I wasn’t in hell with”, he explained.  
“I could just make people give us things for free, you know that right?”  
“Yeah, but that just feels like cheating. And I think people would notice.”  
Michael shrugged. “Guess you’re right.”  
They got a job at the local Target two blocks down the street from the diner where they ate lunch almost every day.  
They bought a few new hoodies in pastel colours, Michael’s favourites, and new jeans. A haircut later they looked less like a homeless man and more like the lead singer of a 90’s boy band who never changed his style.

Four weeks passed. They sat in the diner, when someone entered, a girl. Michael immediately caught on to the fact that she wasn’t human, not that she was trying to hide it. She went straight to his table and plopped onto the bench.  
“Hi”  
Michael squinted his eyes. “What brings a demon here to speak with me? A death wish, perhaps?”  
That cracked her up. “I wish. Sadly not, though. Name’s Crowley. I was sent here by your pops. He demands your presence.”  
“My father? He’s back? Where was he, when I demanded his presence?”  
Crowley grinned. “Playing a prophet, I think. You remember that guy Chuck?”  
His brows furrowed, trying to recall: “Barely”  
“That was him.”  
Michael didn’t know what to say, so Adam took over the conversation.  
“So what’s the king of crossroads doing, working for God?”  
“oh, I’m not the king of crossroads anymore. I was king of Hell for a time, but then you brother came back.  
„In fact, I died, trying to seal Lucifer in a parallel world, but lately your papi’s been obsessed with ending the Winchesters and he wanted a fan favorite to come back for their grand finale or whatever.”  
“Fan favorite?”  
Crowley shrugged.  
“And what’s with Lucifer? Is he still in that other world?”  
“I hear he’s dead. Permanently it seems.”  
That sounded too good to be true. The devil Adam had come to know in their shared years in the cage didn’t just die, but he and Michael both decided not to question it any further.  
“So God wants us…why?”  
“Who’s us?”  
“Me and Michael.”  
Crowley was stunned then he laughed.  
“You’re his vessel?”  
“Currently? Yeah.”  
“Huh, interesting. I don’t think Chuck wants you. He’s just interested in his son.”  
Adam and Michael shifted back. Michael leaned back, crossing his arms. It was bugging him. The fact that his father had been back and his brother out of the cage but he had been left, all on his own, apart from his vessel. And when they had finally gotten out no one had been there to welcome him. Only now, six weeks later, he had gotten word of anything.  
“If father wants something from me, he can come here by himself. I’m not going anywhere.”  
The girl clenched her teeth.  
“He won’t like that.”  
“Good”  
Why does every deity I encounter have daddy issues?, Crowley thought to himself.  
“Thing is, I’m not supposed to leave without you.”  
“You have exactly three seconds to leave before I reduce you to ashes.”  
Crowley didn’t move or say anything. He was ready to die. That would at least end his services to God.  
Three seconds past, nothing happened. Crowley looked at Michael, asking silently.  
“Adam wants me to spare you.”, he shrugged.  
“Why?”  
“he’s a soft human.”  
“And since when do you do what your vessel wants you to?”  
“Well after a few years with only each other you either kill each other or come to a peace.”  
Crowley was still confused. This Michael was so unlike the one he had briefly met ten years ago and even more unlike anything he had heard about apocalypse world Michael.  
“Well if you don’t leave and I can’t leave without you, what should we do?”  
“How about I just teleport you away? Where’s father now?”  
He told the archangel the address.  
“Right then, have a pleasant day.”  
The girl smiled sarcastically. “Oh I won’t!”, then Michael snapped and she disappeared.

The four of them had been driving all night. They weren’t sure what to expect from Michael or on whose side he’d be on or anything, really. But they had to try, for one simple reason.  
He was there, when they locked Amara away. Maybe he can tell us how they did it. They had to hold on to that hope.  
They arrived at 8am. With four hours to fill, Sam and Eileen decided to go on a walk to get the circulation in their legs running after being cramped into their seats for ten hours.  
As soon as they left it was quiet in the car. Cas absently starred out the window. Dean drummed his fingers nervously against the steering wheel.   
“Aren’t you gonna go somewhere?”, Dean finally asked when he felt like he couldn’t bear the silence any longer.  
“I thought about it, but what’s the point? You pretend I don’t exist either away, so I might as well just sit here.”  
“So this is what this is about?”  
Cas kept staring out the window.  
“I already apologized to you, you just refuse to hear it and now I don’t know what else to do, so whatever. It doesn’t matter.”  
Dean rolled his eyes: “Sorry, I said anything. Maybe if you didn’t just up and leave us…”  
“You didn’t give me a choice. You couldn’t forgive me - and you couldn’t move on. You were too angry, still are. I left, but you didn’t stop me.”  
Dean’s tapping got stronger. Castiel sighed: “I guess I will go on a walk after all.”, the car door slammed behind him.   
He’s right. Dean thought. But he couldn’t just stop the anger. And he still wasn’t over losing his mom. Again. And he was angry and he didn’t know how to work through it, so he projected it onto other people. Jack. Cas. Chuck. And deep down he was aware of that. Of this anger that had been there for as long as he could remember. And the fear that came with it. The fear of losing people and the anger that came afterwards.  
But he didn’t know what to do with it. Or what he could do so it would go away. The only times it ever seemed to almost disappear was when he was with his family.   
Sam, Mary, Jack and Cas. But that family was gone and left was the anger.  
When it was time to go and the others came back, he swallowed it down as best he could. Like always.

Dean and Sam entered first. Cas and Eileen were back up.  
Michael saw them coming.  
“Oh look, now your family shows up”, he said.  
“Bet they want you to help them defeat your dad?”  
“I’d lose that bet so no, thank you”  
Adam chuckled. He kept eating his burger when his two half brothers came up to him.  
“Michael? We need to talk to you.”  
Adam took a deep breath. He really didn’t care for this conversation, but he figured that if he just heard them out they would leave him and the archangel alone afterwards.  
Sam and Dean sat down, waiting for a response.  
“Yeah?”  
“We need your help.”  
“To defeat God? Yes, I know.”  
“His pet -- Crowley -- came here, wanted to recruit us as well.”, he explained when he saw their surprised faces.  
Sam blinked. “What did you say to him?”  
“If he wants something he can come and ask himself.”  
Dean pointed at him and his brother.  
“We came by ourselves. Will you help us then?”  
“No.”  
He was amused by their reaction.  
“You haven’t seen you father in -- what? -- a few thousand years? He’s lost it. He is trying to destroy everything.”  
Adam shuffled with his feet.  
“Okay so let me get this straight. You -- both you and God -- you let Lucifer leave the cage -- for whatever reason -- but you keep us in there for another four years just... because? Did you forget we were in there? You didn’t help us in any way but now that you’re at each other's throats you suddenly all need my help?”  
Dean furrowed his brows: “Who’s us?”  
“Oh, who ever could he mean?”, Michael said sarcastically.  
“Adam? You didn’t suppress or kill him?”  
“Seeing as you’re talking to me right now, apparently not”  
They stared at him, dumbfounded.  
That pleased both of them. This look alone is worth keeping you around, Michael thought.  
Hey, I have other qualities! But I agree, this is amazing. You mind taking over? I don’t wanna have to respond to whatever excuses they come up with.  
“Adam, we’re so…”  
Michael raised their hand. Sam stopped talking.  
“Look, I’m not going to help you. Now, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Crowley. You have three seconds to get out or I’ll burn you to ashes.”  
Cas and Eileen intervened before Michael’s empty threat would be exposed. He grabbed his attention, swinging his angel blade and yelling. Eileen came from behind, leaning over the backrest of the booth and somehow managed to cuff his hands that had just picked up the burger again.  
“Oh, really? Come on! This is ridiculous!”  
Sam got up. “Look, this isn’t only about us. Chuck is on a rampage. He doesn’t care about any of us. Not me and Dean, not Lucifer, not even you. He just cares about the spectacle. And we’re not interesting enough to him anymore, so he intends to burn everything. Everything! Every version of everything. That includes you.”  
Michael shook his head. “My father is harsh, but he would never do something like that.”  
“He changed.”, Cas explained.  
“He won’t listen, let’s just get Michael/Adam back to the bunker.”, Eileen suggested.  
Michael do something. I don’t want to go with them.  
I can’t. These shackles limit my power.   
Are you kidding? We have work in half an hour! And I don’t want to be sucked into some apocalypse scenario again. I just want to live a normal life.  
I’m sorry.

Back home they put them in the dungeon/archive room.  
“What the heck do we do now? We can’t get him to spill information if he doesn’t want to.”, Dean said, frustrated.  
“We could try reasoning with him. Or Adam.”, Sam suggested.  
“They’re both pissed at you for letting them rot in a cage.”  
Sam knew Eileen was right.   
“To be fair, he was a dick ten years ago and tried destroying the world just to get daddy’s attention. And meeting his alternate self didn’t exactly make me miss Michael more.”  
They were quiet while trying to come up with ideas.  
“Maybe I should just show him. Them.”, Cas finally said.  
“Show them what?”, Sam asked.  
“Everything that’s been going on. Michael is stronger than me, he knows I can’t feed him false visions. So if I show them he should know that it’s true. And then we’ll see what they do with it.”  
“You think he’ll care?”, Sam asked.  
The angel shrugged. “I have no idea. But he’s different from the other Michael. He let his vessel live. I hope that means something.”  
In lack of a better plan they all agreed. Even Dean.

He closed the door behind him.  
Michael looked up, mildly annoyed but mostly bored.  
“Do you remember me?”, Cas asked.  
“You called me assbutt and then threw a molotov cocktail at me.”  
“Uh -- yes. That was me.”  
“You’re still running around with the Winchesters? What are you? Their pet?”  
You’re also running around with a Winchester, Cas thought mildly confused, but he decided to not say anything.  
“You know, Michael, I never really liked you. Even when I was just another angel, I thought you were too haughty, too... to paraphrase a friend, you had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass. But now? I'm looking at you and I... I just pity you. Because you were never God's Favorite. You were just a little part of his story. You weren't even a star. At least Lucifer knew that God can't be trusted. But I guess he was always the smart one.”  
That got him furious but -- Castiel was relieved -- the shackles held.  
“See the truth for yourself.”, he said and pressed his hands against their temples.

Cas said in a corner, watching the archangel. He looked like he was arguing with himself.   
Maybe they're not lying.   
Oh, come on!, Michael scoffed.  
No, hear me out! Sam and Dean try to be on the right side of things. They actually do. They tried to talk me out of taking you on, for example.  
So, you forgive them?  
Oh, hell, no. No. But that's not what this is about. It's -- Look, if they tell you something's off with God, it's because they believe it's true. And if they believe it, it probably is true.  
Look, you and I have been together for only a few years. My Father and I have been together for eternity. I exist because He willed it.  
Michael was angry at his father, sure. But he couldn’t just go against his will. He just couldn’t.  
So He's having a mid-eternity crisis. Or -- Or, maybe you don't know your dad as well as you think you do. The point is, parents keep secrets, right? Does it hurt you so much to even consider that he might be in the wrong here?  
Yes! It would. It would mean that I doubt him. The good son, the favorite, doubts his father.  
You still care about that? After he left us in the Cage? After we found out that you’re not even the only Michael?  
Michael grunted out loud, which made Cas look up. He did, that was the whole problem, wasn’t it?  
You didn’t even want to come here. You just want to live a normal life, right?  
Well, we can’t just sit by when your dad plans a multiverse-scale genocide, can we? How about this, we give them the information they want and then we leave? Then it’s on them to actually defeat God. If they can do it, great! Apocalypse averted once again! If they can’t… then we can still go and beg your father for forgiveness or whatever.  
Michael clenched their teeth.

They were sitting in the main hall of the bunker waiting for Cas to come back with good news, hopefully. Dean was worried about him. What if Michael got free, somehow? But he shook off his worries. It would all be fine.  
“Food?”, he asked.  
“Yeah, I’m starving.”, Eileen replied. She gave him an expecting look.  
“What so I’m supposed to get it?”  
She shrugged.  
When he got up, Sam chuckled. “Always the one asking. Sorry, dude.”  
Dean shook his head. “You’re all against me”, he said, only half joking and went to the kitchen.  
Sam and Eileen exchanged a look.  
“He’s always so dramatic.”, Eileen commented.  
“Yeah, you start tuning it out after a while.”  
His brother took his sweet time. After a couple of minutes they got so bored, they started playing cards.  
Eileen was winning.  
“No way you have all the strength 10 cards.”  
“I do!”, she promised.  
“I don’t believe you, show me”  
She held up the deck. Sam groaned in defeat and threw his last card over the table.  
“New round?”, he asked. Eileen nodded.  
He loved spending time with her. Especially, when it wasn’t life or death. Just the two of them hanging out. He felt so comfortable around her.  
After a while Dean got back with spaghetti bolognese and beer, of course.  
He saw the two of them banting and hesitated, just for a second. He liked Eileen and he was so happy for Sam. He had no idea if they had anything going on and with Crowley and Chuck keeping them on their toes the entire time he hadn’t gotten around to ask, but he could see the two of them settling down together. Eventually. After they dealt with this whole God-crap.  
They ate. The others were surprised at how good it tasted.  
“I can actually cook, when I want to!”, Dean defended.  
“I know, I know. You’re an excellent chef”  
Dean made a mental note to throw away the empty soup can, before either of them entered the kitchen.  
As they finished, Cas got back, Michael coming after him. He looked distraught. But he wasn’t shooting fireballs at them which was a good sign.  
“He’s helping us”, Cas confirmed and took a seat.  
“That’s awesome!”  
“Is it? My father, the one I devoted my life to, went over the rails and is behaving like a lunatic.”  
“Well, know you know why we have to stop him. So, what do we do?”, Dean wanted to get to the point. He couldn’t wait for this nightmare to be over.  
“What was done to the darkness can be done to God, if he is as weak as you say. And I know how. I should probably write it down somewhere. Do you have pen and paper?”  
Sam went to get some. Eileen’s phone buzzed. She seemed concerned and signaled the others that she had to take this and stepped outside.  
When Michael got his utensils he started writing. Sam looked over his shoulder.   
“We have most of this stuff.”, he noticed.  
“Yeah well, the ritual isn’t exactly complicated. It’s more that the deity you’re trying to capture is able to kill you with one wink of their hand, that’s the tricky part.”  
“Right so what are the ingredients?”, Cas asked.  
“Myrrh, cashew, rock rose”, Sam continued listing the items.  
“We got all that.”  
“And... God’s book? What’s that, the bible?”  
Michael glared at him, then they all burst out laughing, even the archangel.  
“no, but seriously, what is it?”, Cas asked.  
Michael sighed. “It’s -- uh -- do you know of Death’s library?”, he asked.  
“Been there, oh no -- you’re not implying…”  
“I’m afraid I am.”  
“God has a book. In Death’s library. Really? God?”  
Michael looked at Dean. “See, everything that can die, will die. And everything that dies has a book. Even me, even Death herself. Even the Darkness and even God. You need that book for the ritual, you need the right words and -- of course -- someone who can bear the Mark itself.”  
“That’ll be me.”, Cas claimed.  
“What, why? We haven’t discussed that yet.”, Sam interrupted, but Cas had already anticipated that response. He would not be talked out of it.  
“Look, we know what the thing did last time. I’m the only one of us who's powerful enough to even have a chance of resisting, so I’ll take it. No, buts!”  
Sam had no arguments, so he kept his mouth shut, at least until he thought about some. Dean didn’t say anything either.  
Though it felt ridiculous, Cas was hurt by his silence. Dean, of all people, should be the least willing to get that thing back on his forearm, after all the shit they went through to get it off last time. And Cas didn’t want him to bear that burden again, so he was glad he didn’t protest.  
Still, trivial things like his own wellbeing never stopped Dean from shouldering way more than he could carry, for his loved ones.  
But I guess, I’m no longer one of his loved ones.  
“How do we get the book?”, Cas asked.  
“I can make you a portal, but that will take a while, if I don’t want to alarm father. He will be very displeased with what we’re doing.”  
“Good.”  
Eileen came back from her phone call. Michael got up to find a place to meditate or something. She signed. Dean’s ASL wasn’t quite as fluid as his brother’s, but he knew it had something to do with vampires.  
“How bad is it?”  
“Very. I have to go and help out.”  
“I’m coming with you.”, Eileen shook her head. “You have stuff to do.”  
“This is important too and if it’s as bad as you say, then the more the merrier, right?”  
Eileen shook her head. “Fine. I’ll get the gear.”  
“Meet you at the car.”, Sam said, then he turned to Dean. He made an incredulous gesture.  
“What the hell, man? You’re going on a hunt? Now?”  
“It’s a friend of Eileen’s. She’s in danger and needs backup. And Michael still has to prepare which means we have some time to fill anyway. We’ll be quick, I promise. You go, and get everything else we need.”  
Dean grunted. “Fine”

They were in a parking lot.  
“So where’s Julia?”, Sam asked.  
“Julia couldn’t make it.”, a familiar voice replied. Hearing it, sent shivers down his spine. He turned around and saw Chuck. Of course.  
“Hello Sam. Eileen.”, Chuck welcomed them.  
“What?”  
“Why?”, Sam and Eileen pointed their guns at him.  
He laughed maniacally.  
“Oh, Sammy and Eileen, both straight to the point. That’s what I like about you. See, there’s this thing that really annoys me.”, he tapped his shoulder where Sam had shot him. The Winchester could feel his own wound pulsating.  
“And I think it’s time I took care of it.”

“I’m ready”, Michael proclaimed.  
Dean and Cas looked up, right as the archangel opened up the rift. It was crackling with energy.  
“There’s the door. It will remain open for twelve hours. To keep my father from finding out where you’re going right away, I set up two more of these. This one leads to the Sahara desert. There you’ll find one leading to purgatory and the one there will take you to the library.”  
“Are you not coming with us?”  
“Ah, no. I said I’d help you, but this is as far as I go. If anything happens and you don’t succeed, I can still pretend like I’m my father’s loyal son. That way, he might not smite me.”  
“Coward.”, Cas snapped.  
“Thanks”, Michael responded and turned to leave.  
“Wait, before you go, can I talk to him?”  
The angel stopped in his tracks. His vessel gave him the okay. His eyes glinted in the ethereal blue light. Then Adam turned around.  
“Yeah?”  
“I -- uh -- I want you to know...” it was suddenly hard for him to get the words out.  
“we are sorry. What happened to you -- you’re a good man -- you didn’t deserve that.”  
Adam shook his head, snorting.  
“Since when do we get what we deserve?” He looked at Dean, then at Cas, then at the portal. “Good luck.”  
Then he left.  
Dean took a sharp breath.  
“Damn it, Sam and Eileen should be back by now!”  
That’s when his phone buzzed. A text from Eileen:  
It’s Chuck.


	4. Everything Ends

Sam awoke, tied to a chair. The first thing he saw was Eileen in shackles. She wasn’t crying but it seemed close. It took a moment for his mind to catch up. They were about to start the spell for the Mark. He and Eileen had gone to help out a friend of hers. But it turned out… oh no.  
“Samuel. You’re awake. Finally. It was getting kinda boring.”  
Sam sat up straight in his chair trying to get a look at the guy speaking. Simultaneously he fumbled with his bindings.  
“Oh, it’s no use. You can’t get out of that rope, I made sure of that.”  
Chuck pulled up a chair and sat down right in front of the Winchester completely ignoring Eileen.  
“What happened to Julia?”, she asked, not taking the hint.  
Chuck turned to face her.  
“Julia? Nothing. Ever. She wasn’t real.”  
“What?”, Eileen must’ve thought she misread his lips.  
“Oh yeah. See, this whole reunion thing? That was me. I needed someone on the inside. Even that spell. Did you really think Rowena came up with that? And in case I ever needed an urgent meeting with you Samuel, I implanted memories of someone who never existed.”  
Eileen sniffed. “That’s not true! I would never spy for you!”  
“The best spies are those that don’t even know that they are spies.”  
She wanted to say more, but with a wink of his hand she shut up, against her will.  
“You should be grateful. I brought you back! You’re not in hell anymore, that’s an improvement!”  
Eileen -- though inaudible -- started spitting insults. Sam continued struggling. He wanted to say something to Eileen, to comfort her but he didn’t know what to say or do.  
“Anyway”, Chuck said as he snipped a speck of dust from his awful tweed jacket “I know of your little plan. To capture me and I’m telling you know it’s not gonna go the way you think.”  
“Oh yeah? Why? You seem weak. Otherwise you wouldn’t have captured us now. And you needed eyes on the inside? That just means you weren’t able to spy on us by yourself.”  
Chuck shook his head.  
“It might be true that I’m not on my best right now, but that isn’t what I meant. If you tried really hard, you might even succeed. I’m telling you that you shouldn’t, because of what comes after. Do you want to know what happens after, Sammy?”  
Sam squinted his eyes.  
“I’ll take that as a yes”

“What are you doing?”, Cas asked, preparing leviathan killing bullets.  
Not unleashing those bastards onto earth second time, he thought.  
Dean tracked Eileen’s phone. “They’re in Nebraska. The lucky elephant casino. What the hell’s Chuck doing in a casino? Whatever we have to go.”  
“...to the library?”, Cas said.  
“Chuck has Sam, I’m not leaving him.”, Dean got angry.  
“Chuck is not gonna kill him or Eileen, that’s not the ending.”  
“Then he’ll torture them!”, Dean stormed off to go.  
Cas put down the weapon.  
“Dean will you stop? -- just stop being so stupid?”  
That caught him off guard. He turned around “What?”  
“If we attack him now, we don’t have anything that can hurt him. If we get that book and complete the ritual, that’s our chance. That’s the way we’ll save them. And that’s the way we’ll save the world.”

April 17, 2020

They were sitting in the bunker together. Sam, Dean, Eileen and Cas. It was a good day. Lazy breakfast, no cases, Chuck was locked up, all was good.  
Cas fetched them a second beer. He and Dean got along well, Sam was happy.  
His phone buzzed. It was Jody.  
“Hey”, he answered the phone.  
“Hey, Sam”, something in her voice was off as if she’d just spend three hours crying.  
“Is everything okay?”, he asked concerned  
“No, no, it’s Claire. She -- she -- Well, she was on hunt and there was this nest of vampires. There were only supposed to be three of them, but -- there were more and -- Claire’s dead, Sam.”, Jody burst into tears.  
Sam got out of the chair, pacing the floor. The others were facing him, their expression still full joyful.

Sam snapped out of the vision. He was back in the casino, tied to a chair.  
“That’s not real.”, he tried convincing himself..  
Chuck sighed. “Oh, but it will be. And that’s just the beginning. Do you want to see more?”  
“Why are you showing me this at all?”  
Chuck laid his head on the backrest between his legs.  
“See we’re connected through this wound, Sam. And everytime I try healing myself, it doesn’t work. There’s something inside the wound that makes it impossible. I really outdid myself with the Equalizer. But then I figured it out.  
“It’s the hope you cling onto. The hope that you’re going to beat me and that everything will just magically work out afterwards! Well, it won’t. And I figure that if I show you how pointless your quest is, you might finally stop resisting.”  
“You know that’ll never happen.”, Sam promised.  
“Oh, Sammy, I’m not so sure.”

Dean and Cas had crossed the desert in the middle of a sandstorm. They hadn’t exchanged a single word the entire time. Now they stood in front of the second rift, their angel blades ready for whatever happened next.  
It was deafeningly quiet on the other side, compared to the howling of the storm.  
They landed in the middle of the woods. Considering that Purgatory was generally nothing but a giant forest that wasn’t really helpful.  
“Any idea, which way we’re going?”, Dean asked.  
“Nope”, Cas replied and picked a random direction.  
They walked for hours.  
“I think we’re going around in circles, I’ve seen this corpse before.”  
“No, Dean, my sense of direction is excellent, that’s a different corpse.”  
Dean bent down to inspect it.  
“Nah, I don’t know.”  
Cas heard something coming. He looked up to see a leviathan heading straight toward them. He brushed him aside with a wink of his arm.  
Dean looked up, when he heard the creature screaming.  
“Hey, you’re right, it is a different corpse.”  
They tied the monster up, before it could bite their heads off.  
“We’ve heard you following us for miles, thought you’d never make you move”  
The monster grunted.  
“This may sound a little weird, but have you seen any weird cracks in space time around here? Like, in the last twelve hours?”  
The leviathan licked his lips nervously.  
“Maybe something along the lines. But why should I tell you? Are you gonna spare me then?”  
Dean shuckled. “Nah. But I promise, we’ll make it quick.”  
When the leviathan didn’t respond, Dean took out his shotgun.  
“This thing is filled with borax-cloaked bullets and you know what those do to a motherfucker like you.”  
The leviathan held up his hands in defeat.  
“Alright, jeeze, chill.”  
“So where’s the rift?”, Cas asked.  
He pointed vaguely deeper into the woods. “That way, about half an hour.”

January, 2021

The fires outside burned in big bright red.  
“We did all that we could.”, said Dean, trying to sound reassuring as he drove the Impala along the main road, through the burning town.  
“Did we?”, Sam asked enraged. His hands were trembling. He could barely keep himself under control.  
“That place was crawling with ghouls, we had to get outta there.”, he watched the road, too scared to look his brother in the eyes.  
“The victims they all… If Cas was here...”  
“Well he isn’t, alright?!”, Dean was yelling now.

It took all his mental strength to pull himself out of the illusion.  
“Where’s Cas?”, he asked instinctively, though he didn’t actually want an answer.  
“What? You’re concerned about your pet angel? I thought none of it was real?”, Chuck asked with a slimey voice.  
Sam hated that he cared. He hated it even more that people kept referring to Castiel as his and his brother’s pet or dog or whatever. But he remained silent, hoping that it would take the fun out of it for Chuck at least a little bit.  
He looked over to Eileen. She was still terrified and pissed because she couldn’t speak.  
You can endure this, she told him via eye contact. He nodded slightly, hoping she was right.

“I wonder how Benny’s doing. Was kinda hoping we’d run into him”, Dean broke the awkward silence between the three of them.  
“Benny Lafitte? The vampire?”, the leviathan asked.  
“You know him?”, Cas was surprised.  
“Sure. He’s got his own territory in the white woods. That’s seven days from here. Folks don’t mess with him, he’s crazy strong.”  
“Good”, Dean smiled. That son of a bitch was still alive! Well, he was in purgatory, so he wasn’t really exactly alive…  
They got to a meadow.  
“The thing’s over there.”, the leviathan said and pointed to a couple of boulders.  
“I’ll check it out.”, Cas took a step forward and was stuck.  
“It’s an angel trap!”, he realized, but it was already too late. Two other creatures came from the woods. The leviathan that brought them attacked Dean from behind, before he had time to react. His vision blurred, and he blacked out. The last thing he saw was Cas being jumped by three leviathans at once, still not able to move.

January 2021, in the bunker

The table was littered with machetes. Sam was weighing two of them in his hands, determining which was suited better for decapitating ghouls.  
Dean came into the garage in search of his brother. When he saw the blades he sighed “What are you doing?”  
His brother was startled and dropped both weapons.  
“We have to get back out there as soon as possible. If we…”  
“No.”  
Sam squinted his eyes.  
“No?”  
“No, Sammy. If we go back there, we die.”  
“But the people. If we go now, maybe…”  
Dean shook his head.  
“Face it, we lost, Sam. We lost -- and the monsters won. They won.”  
“So you want to quit?”, Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing: “What's happened to you, Dean? Ever since…”  
“Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we've ever cared about?” the words came flooding out. His frustration and pain were washing over him “Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in a Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah. You know why? 'Cause the monsters -- they're everywhere. Everywhere!”, he screamed the last word.  
“What we do -- it's not even Hunting anymore. It's whack-a-mole. We don't even save people. Every friend we've ever had is either dead, or they got wise and they packed it in.”  
Sam didn’t wanna hear it: “Jody's still fighting, and Bobby --”  
“Bobby has a death wish, and you know it.”, Dean interrupted. “And Jody -- ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does, too. And after Eileen... so do you.”  
His concerns fell on deaf ears. Sam turned around.  
“Yeah whatever, I’m going back out there. Stay here if you want.”  
Dean rubbed his face. All his energy, all his hopes destroyed, but they both knew that he would never let his brother go alone.

Dean heard the blood in his head pounding against his skull. When he woke up, he was still on the meadow. The straw like grass pierced through his skin. He got up, feeling dizzy and disoriented.  
“Cas?”, he mumbled. That’s right. We were attacked. He started walking. After a while he remembered that they were on a time limit. He got out his phone. Only three hours and fifteen minutes left. The chances of finding Cas, getting to the library, getting the book -- without Billie noticing -- and getting back were becoming glimm.  
Dean stumbled around aimlessly. “Cas?”, he yelled again and again, but no one answered. He had to stop and lean against a tree to catch his breath.  
Frustrated, he looked up at the sunless sky. For once his fear of losing his family didn’t turn into anger, it turned into tears. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his breath and started praying:  
“Cas? Cas, I hope you can hear me... that wherever you are, it's not too late. I should've stopped you, back then. You're my best friend, but I just let you go. 'Cause it was easier than admitting I was wrong.”, he choked up.  
It was quiet.  
“I-- I don't know why I get so angry. I just know -- I know that it's -- i-it's just always been there. And when things go bad, it just -- it comes out. And I can't”, -- he cleared his throat -- “I can't stop it. No matter how -- how bad I want to, I just can't stop it. And -- and I-I forgive you. Of course I forgive you. I'm sorry it took me so long -- I'm sorry it took me till now to say it. Cas, I'm -- I'm so sorry.”  
He wiped away his tears and rubbed his runny nose.  
“Man, I hope you can hear me. I hope you can hear me. Okay.”  
He felt a weight lifted off his shoulders. He just really hoped, Cas had heard him. He didn’t know if he had the strength to do this a second time. He would have to, though. The way they were living now, was no longer sustainable for Dean. If their feud continued any longer -- and Dean was well aware that it was his fault it took this long -- he would just self-combust.  
In the quiet forest the sizzling of a rift pierced the air like a gunshot on a quiet night. When Dean heard it, he sped up.  
He had found it! Dean was 95% sure it was the one leading to the library. But Cas was still nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t leave without him.  
That’s when he heard someone coming up behind him. Dean turned around, ready to shoot. He wasn’t going to be smashed in the head a second time today.  
“Don’t shoot.”  
“Cas!”, Dean dropped the gun and hugged the angel. “Where did the leviathan take you?”, he asked after he let him go.  
Cas shrugged. “I think they wanted to eat me or something? They took me back to their camp and I waited for the right time to escape. That time never came though, so I just bashed their heads together and left.”  
Dean grinned like a four year old.  
“So, what’re we waiting for? Let’s go.”, Cas stepped towards the rift.  
“No, wait. Before we do that, I gotta tell you something, man, it’s important.”  
Cas turned around.  
“You don’t have to say it, I heard your prayer.”  
They saw each other. For the first time in months Dean looked him openly in the eyes. Cas was searching for answers in his.  
“Unless there’s more?”, the angel asked.  
Dean’s chest felt like it was about to implode, but he shook his head.  
“In that case”, Cas said, smiling while gently taking Dean by the hand.  
“Let’s face Death together.”

Sam’s head pounded. He was barely aware of his surroundings. All he could focus on was Chuck’s face right in front of him, looking serious for once.  
“Oh yes, the misery, the loss. So grimm, I would never write something like that. A little bit of drama sure, but whatever you two are conjuring up is just -- depressing.  
“Do you wanna know how it ends?”  
Sam didn’t, but he didn’t get a choice.  
Everything turned dark, then he saw Jody and Bobby, readying their weapons.  
“You ready?”, Bobby asked. She shook her head.  
“Yeah, me neither,”  
“Why did they do it?”  
Bobby didn’t answer. The same reason they were going to follow their example.  
They busted open the door of some public school and got jumped immediately. Heads were flying. Sam had seen all of it from a third person’s perspective but suddenly it changed. He was part of the mob washing over his two hunter friends. His body moved on its own; he couldn’t feel anything but hunger and rage. Next to him was his brother, looking as starved and sick as Sam felt.  
We were turned, the small, still functioning part of his brain thought.  
Jody and Bobby came into view. They saw each other at the same time. Their expressions became motionless.  
Sam towered over the woman. Her machete sliced.  
Darkness.

The library was just like Dean remembered. A gigantic dimly lit dimension full of sterile looking shelves, every single one labeled with the name of an individual. There was no apparent order to any of it, alphabetical or otherwise.  
At least none, either of them could understand. Dean frantically checked the timer every two minutes. They barely had half an hour left. They wouldn’t be able to get back in time, before the rifts closed. They failed.  
“We have to go”, he whispered.  
Cas begrudgingly agreed. Maybe, if they hurried they could still make it. Their hope was slim, but it was all they had.  
“You’re right, we’ll find another way.”  
Dean almost expected the angel to take his hand again, sadly though, he didn’t. It was probably just a heat of the moment thing, he thought, trying to convince himself.  
They were almost out, when they heard a menacing voice.  
“Not so fast”  
They stopped in their tracks. Billie had appeared right in front of them.  
“Where do you think you’re going?”

“So you see, Sammy? This is what’ll happen when you seal me away. Without my light the monsters will come crawling. You and everyone you’ve ever loved will die, gruesomely.”  
Sam wanted to tell God to screw himself, but his eyes betrayed him. He was crying. “No...no”, his protests grew weaker and weaker. He felt how he started to believe him and he hated himself for it.  
“Not… true…”, his eyes and nose were running.  
He could still feel Jody’s blade cutting through his throat. The memory was so vivid, he felt like vomiting.  
“I told you. It is! And you won’t wiggle yourself out of that one, you’ll just die and stay dead. Because you won’t have me anymore! Don’t you understand, Sammy? I’m the one who made all of your impossible little stunts possible!  
“Without me, you’re nothing! No, worse, you’re normal! And normal people die! And they don’t get a second chance! Or a third!”  
Sam was vaguely aware that Eileen tried to get his attention, but he couldn’t face her. Chuck was right. No he isn’t.  
But what if he is and all of this is a mistake?  
It’s not. And whatever comes after, we’ll deal with it.  
But Sam couldn’t even convince himself.

She had led them to her desk and sat down on the big, fancy leather chair behind it. The desk was covered in book piles, all neatly arranged.  
“So?”, she asked. “What do you want? You must know that I don’t like idiots like you fumbling about in my reading room, so I expect you have a really good excuse.”  
“We do.”, Dean promised.  
“Alright.”, she folded her hands, waiting for them to elaborate.  
“Are you sure we should tell her?”, Cas whispered. Dean nodded. They didn’t really have any other options.  
“Is this about your plan to defeat God?”, Billie interrupted.  
“You know about that?”, Cas asked in surprise.  
“I heard you kidnapped Michael and I figured, that was your plan. Or you would try to bring back one of you friends. Again.”  
“No, you are right. We want to lock up Chuck like he did the darkness. One of the ingredients is here, that’s why we came.”  
She looked at each of them. They didn’t continue, so she asked:  
“So what is this ingredient?”  
“His book.”  
Death inhaled sharply. Dean could almost see the gears in her head turning and the moment when they snapped into place, reaching some sort of decision.  
She took one of the books in the pile right in front of her and skimmed through the pages.  
Dean got impatient. “So? What’re you gonna do with us? If you wanna kill us, get it over with already but stop acting all mysterious.”  
She frowned at him over the edge of the pages. Then she sat it down.  
“Okay.”  
Dean and Cas glanced at each other.  
“Okay, what?”  
“I’ll give you the book.”, she explained. After skimming the final pages she slammed it shut and handed it to Dean.  
He looked dumbfounded. The thing looked like all the others. The binding was plain, the cover black. The small, golden letters read out God. Dean tried to open it, but the book refused.  
“I’m the only one who can read it, unless I give others permission, remember?”  
Dean had forgotten about that part, but he nodded anyway.  
“Why are you helping us?”-- the angel asked --”What do you want in return?”  
“I want order restored. The way God has been neglecting the order of things is dangerous, I want him stopped. We have the same goal, so I don’t want anything from you. Don’t fail.”  
“You serious? Promise me, that you’ll let us lead a free life when we do this. No catch.”  
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I promise I’ll let you live out that free will you’re so obsessed over.”  
Dean nodded.  
You know, when you came here the first time, I told you, you still have a part to play, you and your brother. This is it.”

With that she sent them back, straight to the bunker.  
Everything else was ready. Dean put the book into a cauldron with the other ingredients. As soon as it hit the liquid’s surface, the substance started bubbling ominously.  
Cas pulled up his sleeve.  
“Let’s get this over with.”, he said.  
“Wait, Cas, are you sure you want this? I can take the Mark…”  
“No. You already had to endure it once. I’m an angel, I have the biggest chance of surviving this, without going insane. No offense.”  
Dean shook his head. “None taken.”  
They locked eyes and Dean saw how serious Cas was, so he nodded.  
“Alright.”, then he started chanting the words Michael had written down.  
The black liquid swirled and fizzed and started shrinking together, compressing itself. Cas grunted. A bright light started drawing thin silver lines on his forearm. They merged and split until the familiar looking Mark started forming. The light faded and the pain eased, as Dean finished the ritual.  
The content of the cauldron had shrunk into a perfect, pitch black sphere. Dean took it out. It wasn’t hot and the surface felt smooth like glass.  
They looked at each other.  
“I’m okay”, Cas assured him.  
“Well then it’s time to save Sammy.”

They burst through the door of the casino.  
Dean shot at Chuck -- to no effect of course -- but he was briefly distracted from playing his stupid guitar which Dean took as a win.  
God made a welcoming gesture, smiling: “Hello Dean. Cas.”  
“Let them go, you son of a bitch!”, Dean yelled.  
Chuck locked shocked. “Is this how you greet your host?”  
Dean got the sphere from his pocket. Chuck's smile became a little crooked, but he caught himself quickly. Setting down his instrument he asked:  
“Do you really think that’ll work on me?”  
Cas shrugged. “Worth a try, don’t you think?”  
Chuck snipped his fingers. Forward came Eileen. She walked as if she was hanging in strings. She fought against every step her body took.  
“He is possessing her!”, Sam yelled from his chair, still suffering from the after effects of the time jumps. His vision was blurred, but he understood just enough to follow the scene unfolding in front of him.  
“Yeah, we figured!”, Dean yelled back. She threw herself at him, angel blade in her hand. There was just enough time to deflect it. She did a half turn and tried to stab him from behind. That one was blocked by Cas.  
“Free Sam, go!”, he whispered. Eileen’s body prepared for the next attack.  
Dean nodded and got away but standing between him and Sam was still God and he had no idea how to get past him.  
I’ll just smash it now, he thought but before he could, Chuck did a pulling gesture and he could feel the sphere slipping out of his hand.  
“No!”, he screamed, but he knew he would lose this tug of war. So instead of resisting he let go, sped after the thing and punched Chuck right into his face.  
God didn’t even move, but Dean's hand went numb in the process. He cursed.  
“Go for the shot wound!”, Sam advised.  
Chuck grunted, not pleased. “Sam! You’re not supposed to give away my weak spot!”, he played with the orb.  
“Funny thing, this spell. Too bad that it didn’t work.”  
Dean tackled him, aiming at the wound this time.  
Sam, still delirious, heard shuffling behind him. Someone cut his bindings.  
“No sudden movements, Moose, don’t want him spotting me and make me put a knife in you back.”  
“Crowley?”, Sam mumbled.  
“Yes, obviously. His concentration is broken, so I can move on my own.”  
The scuffle between God and Dean held on. Dean landed a critical hit, right into Chuck’s wound. He and Sam both gasped, feeling the same pain. He let go of the sphere. It fell to the ground rolling under a bingo ball machine. Sam dove after it.  
“No, wait…!”, Crowley tried to stop him so as to not blow their cover, but it was too late.  
Chuck burst out laughing when he saw the demon. “I can’t believe it. You actually think you have a say in whose side you’re on.”  
The girl got up, involuntarily.  
“Perhaps not. But I can tell you that in these past years a lot of very powerful creatures -- me included -- were facing up against the Winchesters. And somehow, some way they always end up dead or trapped and the Winchesters always come out on top, usually a trail of bodies behind them.  
“No!”, Crowley raised his hand when Chuck was trying to interrupt him. He wasn’t finished.  
“No, I know what you’re going to say. That all their last minute victories are thanks to your brilliant writing? Well, I had to memorize more than six thousand pages of that crap in the last few weeks and I can assure you, that’s not it and I can tell you right now, they’re gonna beat you too.  
“Maybe not today,maybe not with this plan, but one way or another, you’ll lose.”  
Chuck grinded his teeth. He lifted his hand and the girl was lifted from her feet. He set her on fire. Crowley didn’t scream. Then he pushed her body away with such force that she crashed through the ceiling and the upper floors, out of sight.  
“No!”, Dean yelled.  
Cas had restrained Eileen by now, while constantly apologizing for the possible pain he caused her. Finally, he managed to get hold of her forehead. He stretched out his fingers and the woman collapsed into his arms.  
Chuck seemed displeased at this turnout.  
“Now, where were we?”, Chuck asked, rubbing his hands together after he dealt with the demon.  
“Right here.”, Sam said. He was kneeling on the ground, the orb that he had retrieved from under the machine in his right.  
Chuck shook his head.  
“You know what I showed you, Sam. If you go through with this plan, that’s how it will go, trust me. The monsters will rise up and slowly, but surely you will all die. I know you don’t want that. So just give me that thing.”  
The delirium had finally worn off. What he had been shown was worse than most nightmares he had. Sam was scared. He didn’t know what the future would hold but if it was like the one he was shown, maybe it was better, if they just gave up right here, right now.  
“Don’t listen to him, Sammy!”, Dean yelled.  
He could see the borderline psychotic glimmer in Chuck’s eyes as he watched Sam lowering his arm.  
But then, out of the blue, Sam burst out laughing.  
“Oh come on Chuck, we’re the Winchesters! You wrote our story! Shouldn’t you know us better than anyone else? What is the one thing we never do? Give up, lose hope! Even if we do, we get it back! You, of all people, should know that. Even if what you showed me was true, we would find a way to fix it. Because that’s what we do! No matter what you throw at us!“  
Dean could see a hint of something that almost looked like fear in Chuck‘s expression.  
„NO“, he bellowed „This is not how this is supposed to play out! This is no fun! This isn’t your destiny!“  
„Destiny can kiss my ass!“, Dean yelled back.  
„Goodbye, Chuck“, Cas said with a grim expression.  
The orb shattered on the ground. A wild roar began and suddenly a wind started picking up. Where the shards lay a rift appeared. It began sucking in more and more air and tightened its grip on Chuck. Eileen, Cas, Dean and Sam, they all were left completely untouched by the maelstrom. They could hear god screaming but he wasn’t powerful enough to escape. He was sucked in, then the noise suddenly stopped.

It was silent. Dean grabbed Cas’s arm and pulled up the trenchcoat where the Mark of Cain was burned into his skin.  
“Did it work? Do you feel anything?”  
Cas locked eyes with Dean, who still hadn’t let go of his arm.  
“I…” before he could finish his sentence Cas collapsed. Dean was there to catch him before he hit the ground.  
“I’m okay”, Cas mumbled Dean‘s arm around waist, the other holding his left arm over his shoulder.  
“Sure you are”, Dean said sarcastically.  
“Let’s go Sammy! No time to waste.”  
Aww, they finally made up, Sam thought.  
“I can’t believe it. We actually did it! We locked up God!”, he helped up Eileen. They looked for Crowley too, but there was no sign of him, so they left the casino.  
“I’m gonna tattoo “I killed god” on my forehead”, Dean said smiling like a four year old.  
“We didn’t kill god, we captured him.”, Cas rebutted.  
“Be quiet Mr. I’m okay. It’s the same thing.”  
Cas roled his eyes but he couldn’t help but smile at Dean’s expression.  
“So, what do we do now?”, Eileen asked, when they reached the Impala. She seemed tired, but just as happy as the rest of them.  
“Burgers”, Dean said immediately. “Extra bacon, extra beef, extra everything.”  
“You’re gonna die of a heart attack one of these days, man”, Sam said.  
“They don’t call me Meatman for nothing, Sammy”  
“No one calls you that.”  
“Yes, they do. Right Cas?”  
When Cas didn’t respond right away, Dean shook him a little so his head bounced up and down.  
“See, the angel agrees. He’s nodding.”  
“I can still burn your insides with a single touch of my hand”, Cas said, trying his hardest to sound threatening.  
“Yeah? well try me angel boy. Oh right! Right now you can’t even stand by yourself. Let’s go eat Burgers people!”

They got their burgers and digged in. It was the best food Dean had ever had and he had had a lot of food.  
Cas sat next to him. They had ordered him a burger even though he didn’t have to eat it and sure enough, he didn’t. Instead he picked it apart and started to rearrange the vegetables, beef and burger buns into a -- well Dean wasn’t really sure.  
The waiter gave Cas a disgusted look he didn’t seem to notice. Dean nudged his shoulder to get his attention.  
“Hey buddy? What’re you doing?”  
Cas looked up from his masterpiece.  
“Building. Look, I made the entrance to heaven.”, he answered and presented his plate to the others.  
“This is the sand box with the symbol.”, he pointed at one of the burger buns.  
“These are the slides and that whole climbing contraption”, by these he meant the tomatoes that were leaning on a tower of pickle slices.  
“And the cheese is that net. Humans are strange. Why would they want their kids to play on something that looks like a giant spider’s web?”  
Dean shrugged and exchanged a look with Sam.  
“I think you should go to bed early today”  
“I don’t sleep, Dean”  
“Yeah, I know. Still.”  
“What’s that?” Eileen asked.  
Her eyes were fixed on an olive that had salad sticking in the hole where the seed used to be.  
“That’s the guard. Eremiel.”  
Eileen looked as though she wanted to comment on Cas’s art but suddenly her expression went grim.  
She dropped the burger and started to whimper silently.  
“Hey, Eileen, everything okay?”, Sam asked as he put an arm on her back.  
With the other he reached for her hand. She locked eyes with him then and he could see that she was on the verge of tears.  
Then she was gone. Just like that. Poofed out of existence.  
They all just sat there. Silently. Trying to understand what the hell just had happened.  
After the short moment of shock Sam began howling.  
“Eileen! Where are you?!”, he got up and frantically looked around.  
But Eileen was nowhere to be seen.  
“Eileen?”, Dean yelled too. The other customers started to mumble. None of them saw what had happened.  
Sam still couldn’t believe what had just occurred. People didn’t just vanish.

Cas saw her first. Not Eileen. Billie.  
“Guys!”, he pointed at Death. She leaned against the wall by the entrance.  
“So. You did it! You captured god. Congratulations!”  
She closed the distance between them with a few steps. The people she walked past all lost consciousness. By the time she reached their table everyone but them was asleep. Sam stared at her steadfastly.  
“Sit down, Samuel.”  
Surprisingly, even to himself, he obeyed.  
“What are you doing here? What just happened? Where is Eileen?”, words came flooding out of Sam’s mouth.  
Billie held up her hand and Sam forced himself to stop.  
“Well now that Chuck” -- she spit out that name as if it were a disease -- “is out of office -- at least for a while -- there’s a power vacuum. If that doesn’t get filled soon there will be an all out war. Everyone against everyone else. Pure chaos. And not like the chaos you Winchesters like to create. It will be even worse, even less controlled.  
“So I took it upon myself to step in, in God’s absence.”  
“You wanna play God?”, Dean asked dumbfounded.  
“I don’t play.”  
“Wait.”, Cas seemed to have figured it out: “This was your plan all along wasn’t it? That’s why you helped us in the first place. Why you gave us the book”  
“I’m doing what’s right. There must be order in order for existence to function in the way it is supposed to function. God lost sight of that, sight of what’s really important, so he had to be restrained. I will restore that order. Whatever it takes.”  
“What do you mean, restore order?”, Dean asked although he feared he already knew the answer. Under the table he slowly grabbed for his gun though he knew that would be hopeless.  
“The dead stay dead. The living stay on earth and the earth they were born on at that. The angels stay in heaven and the demons stay in hell. As it should be.”  
Sam was shaking, ready to jump up at any second.  
“So Eileen?”  
“Is back where she belongs. And as soon as I find your little demon friend he goes back too. As are all your little hunter friends you brought with you from the apocalypse world.”  
“But that world got destroyed!”  
Cas's eyes widened as he started to understand the full extent of what Billie had done.  
“Not my problem, angel”  
That’s when Sam attacked. He lunged himself across the table, but Billie was prepared. She held up her hand once more. Sam froze up like a block of ice mid flight. Dean’s weapon already pointed at Death’s head. Only Cas could resist. Enough, at least, to speak.  
“Why not us? We all died at least once. Why not kill us?”  
Bille smiled.  
“Oh Castiel. Do you honestly think I hadn’t thought about that? But I can’t get rid of you. Not with that deal you made with you know who. And not with you bearing the Mark Of Cain. Not when I want to establish any kind of order. As for Sam and Dean”, she glanced at them.  
“I did promise to help you lead a life free of Chuck and I keep my promises, unlike some of you.” she side eyed Cas as she said it.  
“You have what you asked for. Your Free Will.  
“The books in my library all show me the same thing now. Dean, dying while he’s on the hunt. Sam, growing old and depressed and wearing a truly awful lump of lint as an excuse for hair. If that’s what you’re wasting your free will on, by all means. I won’t stand in your way.”  
And with that, she left.  
The customers started waking up and slowly the silence got filled by everyday noises again.


	5. Master Of None

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year!  
> Uh... anyway, here's the next chapter (if people care).

“Where am I? Hello?”  
Jack's shouts lost themselves in the endless void.  
He wasn’t sure where he was. The empty, maybe? But how? Then he remembered. God. His grandfather. He snapped him out of existence.  
As much as he wanted to feel disappointed or upset or at least scared he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything. There, where his soul once had been was a black hole. It was just like this void he was wandering through. He couldn’t see anything. No light, no dark, just emptiness. Utter and complete emptiness.  
“Hello?”, he yelled again.  
A figure appeared far away. Jack could see them.  
Jack walked towards the figure. As he got closer he saw it was a man, sitting on a black throne, that blended almost perfectly with the background.  
And not just any man. “Nick? No wait, Lucifer!”  
“Wrong kid. Try again”  
Jack took a closer look then it dawned on him.  
“The Empty. It’s you. The one who possessed Duma when we were in Heaven”  
“That’s right.” They Empty smiled mischievously.  
“And you’re being loud. All the yelling, the screaming, all the disordered thoughts, the walking around. It’s irritating and distracting! Go to sleep already”  
Jack could see the suppressed rage in its eyes.  
“I apologize”  
The Empty scoffed and got up. Then it grew bigger and bigger right in front of him. “Be quiet!”, it hissed then it dissolved.

Jack obeyed. He didn’t know what to do, so he sat down, right where he was standing. And he sat. And waited. For something to happen. To fall asleep. Or maybe for someone to rescue him, though that was ridiculous. Sam and Dean probably had their hands full. And Cas, well Cas already sold his soul to the Empty for him once. He doubted he would do that again, not after he burned his soul.  
He sat there and waited. Days passed. Months. Or maybe just seconds. Time lost meaning because the passing of time meant something was happening but here nothing ever happened. There was just nothingness all around him. And inside him. Jack didn’t try to fight it, whatever it was exactly. He did as he was told, he kept quiet. For eternity.  
Seconds later - or maybe a few centuries? - the Empty appeared again.  
“Why isn’t it working?”, it asked enraged. Even though Jack couldn’t comprehend its feelings he could hear the misery in it’s voice. He still had the urge to help, though he didn’t know why. Maybe he also wanted to sleep.  
“What can I do?”, he asked.  
“be quiet. Slumber.”  
“I’ve tried, it doesn’t seem to be working.”  
“Shut up!”  
Jack shut up. Another eternity passed until the Empty appeared for a third time.  
“Why do you keep thinking?”, it asked.  
Jack didn’t know what to reply.  
“No one’s gonna save you, you know? Ever since you lost your soul and killed their mother the Winchesters lost faith in you. Dean tried to kill you, remember?”  
“He did. But he wasn’t the one who killed me. It was God.”  
The Empty clenched Lucifer’s teeth.  
“God. What a joke. But you ugly humans and angels and demons, you all looked up to him for so long. Still do, actually. It’s pathetic.”  
“If you dislike us so much, why did you come to heaven to try and get me, when I died the first time? Why do you reclaim all the souls, if you can’t even stand them?”  
The Empty looked at him through Lucifer’s eyes.  
“Because you’re loud. Everything God ever created, it’s sound reaches me, even here. In the emptiness. It’s so irritating, so frustrating. One day though, when everything is dead, even God and his sister, their creation will dissolve back into nothing. Into me. Finally, there will be silence again. True silence. None of this irritating background noise. And the sooner I reclaim the souls of those that have fallen the faster the worlds die.”  
Jack nodded.  
“But until that day comes I want to slumber and you and your disjointed thoughts, your last scrap of soul swirling around inside you, they make it impossible.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“You should be.”  
It left him alone again. But Jack couldn’t stop thinking, no matter how hard he tried. Out of nowhere, he had an epiphany.  
“Wait a minute! What if...? What if the reason why I can’t be quiet is because I’m not supposed to be here?”  
“You’re half arcangel, your soul belongs to me.”, the Empty replied, after popping up right next to him. It looked itself down and up.  
“This is your father’s body.”  
“Yes, I know, that’s not what I mean.”  
It raised Lucifer’s eyebrow indicating it was listening.  
“So back when I died the first time, you wanted to claim me, but instead you made that deal with Castiel, remember?”  
“Of course I remember. He will be mine very soon, I can just feel it.”  
“Exactly. The deal is still on, which means you can’t swallow me. Not if you don’t want to break the deal and I don’t think you can.”  
The Empty, previously staring into the nothingness ahead suddenly faced him head on.  
“That was before. You died, again. New rules apply. I can have you both!”  
Its fury sent ripples through the absent air. For just a moment Jack could see a glimpse of the Empty’s actual form. Of its power. And its utter fatigue.  
“You will. Eventually, I suppose. If what you said before is true. But you can’t right now.”  
Lucifer’s head turned away.  
“If you let me leave, I’ll leave. Then I might not bother you as much anymore. “  
The Empty disappeared without an answer. Jack waited. He too felt tired, but he couldn’t stop existing, no matter how hard he tried.  
This time it took longer for the figure to reappear. Or maybe it reappeared instantly? Time was still something Jack struggled with here.  
“Fine. Seeing as you don’t seem to have any intention of letting me rest, you may leave.”  
Jack got up on his feet and walked towards the figure.  
“Whereto?”, he asked, but the Empty dismissed his question with a sneer. “Not my problem kid. Pretty sure you're still dead and your friends should’ve burned your body by now so no going back there. Not doing that again. They trapped your grandfather, it seems.”  
“They did? Who? Cas, Sam and Dean? How?”  
“Who cares? He will come back eventually. It looks like Billie is running the show. Don’t know if she’ll let you into heaven, but you can try.”  
“Thank you. For keeping your promise.”  
“Yeah, whatever. Just leave already.”  
Behind Lucifer, a door came into existence. Jack had completely forgotten about the physical sensation of touch and needed a moment to adjust to feeling the handle with the skin of his hand. He pushed the door open.  
There was light. Without looking back, he stepped over the threshold.

He wasn’t on earth. Neither the one he was born into nor any other world God had created while writing his story. He also wasn’t in heaven or hell or purgatory for that matter. He was somewhere in between.  
Jack wandered around for a while. It wasn’t like before. He wasn’t surrounded by nothing but rather by everything.  
Maybe this is where God was? Or rather, where he should have been. I feel like I’m everywhere. But also nowhere.  
Sometimes he was sure he could hear people say his name. Cas. Sam and Dean. Mary. His mother. Even Rowena.  
“Jack! Jack come back. Jack, I’m so sorry, kid. Jack! Jack, it’s not your fault, Jack! Listen to me! We miss you so much, Jack.”  
He couldn’t figure out where the voices were coming from though. Everytime he turned around to find out he saw nothing. Or maybe everything. The In Between -which is what Jack started to call the place - was a strange one.  
At some point, he found a door different from the one he came from. It was made from white marble. The handles were golden and the details depicted angels in diapers and flowers and animals prancing through meadows. No question, this must be the door to heaven, Jack thought.  
Seeing as there wasn’t anything else to do, he knocked. At first no one answered but when Jack prepared to knock again, he heard a shuffle from the other side. “Alright, alright, hold your horses, I’m coming, I’m coming!”  
He heard the clicking of what must’ve been a million locks being opened.  
Someone, a small stubby looking guy, or rather an angel, opened the door an inch and peeked through the crack.  
“Hello”, Jack said, raising his open left hand up to his shoulder.  
“I’m Jack”  
The angel looked him up and down. His sweaty greyish curls reached all the way to his rectangle glasses.  
“You mean Jack as in Lucifer’s son Jack or as in Jack and the beanstalk?”  
Jack squinted his eyes.  
“As in Lucifer’s son Ja… what do you mean by beanstalk?”  
“Well, only the really crazy ones come through this door. Speaking of, how did you get… there?”  
“I walked.”  
“Right.”  
There was an awkward silence in which they just stared at each other expectedly.  
“So… can I come in?”  
“Afraid not”  
“Why?”  
Now it was the angels turn to squint his eyes.  
“Billie. She, well she wants everything to be… in order. The dead stay dead. The humans on earth the bad souls and the demons stay in hell the good ones and the angels in heaven. Dead monsters to purgatory and dead half archangels like you, well you don't really fit in anywhere but I suspect she wants you to stay in the Empty because you know, that’s where she put you?”  
“I understand, but I can’t stay in the Empty.”  
“Yeah, no one ever can.”  
“No, I, I mean I really can’t. The Empty can’t absorb me, so it let me leave.”  
“Well you can’t go to heaven either. Or hell for that matter.”  
“So what now?”  
The angel tugged his shoulders. “No idea. Why don’t you just stay where you are?”  
“Do you know where I am?”  
The angel shook his head.  
“But you’re guarding the door.”, Jack examined sceptically.  
“yeah, so what? The only ones ever coming through here are God or utterly lost souls like you. And that basically never happens.”  
They both said nothing for a while.  
“Well then”, Jack sighed. “I guess I should go… somewhere.”  
“Sounds like a plan. Good luck, kid.” and he slammed the door.  
Jack could hear mumbling through the door as the angel locked all the locks once more, then he was surrounded only by a faint buzzing.  
The empty was right, Jack discovered. Existence, life, consciousness, whatever he was supposed to call it, it was… humming. Vibrating. Beaming.  
As he continued to walk in between it all, he listened. This was God’s creation. His perfect vision of the world. Yes, a world only meant to entertain God himself, but let alone, his perfect world.  
And it was beautiful. In parts at least. But somehow, the parts didn’t fit together well. They were disjointed. They produced cacophonies in between the beauty. As if it was all a giant jigsaw puzzle that someone had just gotten tired of and matched all the parts together by force, regardless of whether they fit or not.  
And then he could hear something else. Something so much more beautiful than the rest.  
Without hesitation he followed the faint melody through the Between.  
Up ahead he saw something. A rose arch.  
He stepped through it, light completely blinding him, just for a moment.  
The ground was covered by soft green grass. Jack could see luscious trees, could hear them whisper in the soft warm breeze. Birds were chirping. There was a river and flowers, everywhere. In every colour and shape. Jack followed the river to a clearing in the woods. In its middle stood an old tree. Ripe fruits, apples, where hanging on the branches. Jack could feel the energy coming from the tree.  
And he felt something else, a presence.  
“So we finally get to meet.”  
Jack turned around. There was a woman standing in front of him. Her eyes were dark, her hair fell in soft brown waves. She smiled at him.  
She held out her hand. After a moment of mild confusion, Jack realized that she wanted him to shake it.  
“Hello”, he said and as their hands touched he suddenly understood who she was.  
“Your Amara. Chuck’s sister. My…”  
“...Great Aunt. Yeah, I know. And you’re Jack, the hunter's kid.”  
“Right. Where are we? And how did I get here?”  
“This?”, she asked and made a vague, all encompassing gesture.  
“Can’t you tell?” and she pointed towards the apple tree.  
“Is that the apple tree?”  
“Yup, precisely. That is the tree of knowledge.”  
“So we are in the Garden of Eden?”  
“Yeah, in paradise.”  
Jack looked around. Yes, he thought. This did feel like paradise. Kinda. In a way. This was the harmony the rest of creation was lacking.  
“How did I get here?”, he asked in awe.  
Amara shrugged.  
“You found it, right? The one, perfect, oldest place in existence.”  
“Shouldn’t the Empty be the oldest place in existence?”  
“Well, seeing as the Empty is literally nothing I wouldn’t really define it as a place.”  
“I see”  
There was a moment of silence. Jack watched his great aunt. She seemed completely unfaced by any of the events on earth which he had apparently been missing.  
“So this is the oldest place in existence?”  
“That’s right. The very first world me and my brother created.”  
“Together?”  
“Well, yes. He never talks about it but the Garden of Eden wasn’t created for the humans or even for his angels. We created it for ourselves, right after we split from the Empty.”  
Jack nodded. “Well, it looks nice.”  
“Right?”, she replied, smiling. But there was a sadness in her glance, Jack noticed, even without his soul.  
“And why are you here?”  
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to remind myself of the good old days.”  
“I see”, Jack said again.  
“Your family, they trapped my brother.”  
“So I’ve heard.”  
“Yeah, and he deserves it. He was going through a bit of a midlife crisis, if you can call it that” she laughed, but got serious again quick.  
“He started destroying some of his old stories. The ones he lost interest in. And he was on a path to destroy your world too. And Sam and Dean for that matter.”  
“But they trapped him right? With the same spell he used on you once?”  
She nodded.  
“Do you want some tea?”, she asked suddenly and nodded towards an open pavilion only a few feet away. Jack was almost certain, it hadn't been there before.  
“Thank you.”, he said politely though he never cared much for tea. As they sat down the table inside the pavilion was set with plates of fruits and sweets and a big teapot. She poured him some darjeeling and then leaned back in her chair.  
“You know, my brother, he was never really good at the big picture. He had all these small ideas, heaven, hell, gravity, weasels but he never really managed to put it all together.”  
Jack nodded. “I felt that, I think. When I was wandering around.”  
“Right? Thank you! Since I got out, I sensed it. He must’ve felt it too, I believe. That’s why he kept adding, kept building new worlds, kept repeating.  
Instead of working with what he already had, he just created more. Because that’s what he does, he creates. And I destroy. That’s the balance.”  
Jack blinked, confused.  
“But you said he deleted worlds? How does that… work?”  
Amara sighed: “I guess he got frustrated. He actually asked me for help, but I refused, so he went and did it himself. And that created chaos. Because he isn’t at full power, which meant that he could only destroy by creating. He quite literally overloaded the harddrive of the universes he destroyed. He threw off the balance. That’s why I didn’t interfere when your family locked him up.”  
Jack squinted at her mentioning his family. He missed them so much.  
“Hold on.”, he said out loud, completely unaware of the look, Amara gave him.  
I miss them. I actually miss them! I died. Dean wanted to kill me. Oh god, what did I do? I killed Mary. I killed Mary! I killed mom. I hurt everyone so much.  
“What”, Jack wanted to ask, but he choked up, his eyes filling with tears. “What is happening? I feel... I can feel again?”  
Amara smiled faintly.  
“It’s the garden. It’s incredibly powerful. Since you got here it took whatever little spark of your soul was left and started repairing it. I recon, by the end of tea you’ll be completely restored.”  
“What did I do?”  
Amara reached over the table and squeezed his hand reassuringly.  
“What you did, was pretty messed up, I agree, but you’re not at fault Jack. You didn’t have a soul. I know, it might not seem as if that is a valid excuse, but it is.”  
Jack couldn’t stop crying.  
They sat there for almost an eternity.  
Amara was very patient with him. Jack was so grateful.  
“What do I do know?”  
The plates were all empty, a moon started rising and fireflies illuminated the pavilion and the woods.  
“Well I have a few ideas. Most of them involve overthrowing Death. Billie, I mean. She is holding on to an order that is fundamentally flawed.”  
“Isn’t she the most powerful being in the universe now? How can I even stop her?”  
“Well, I reckon me and my brother, though he’s currently preoccupied and the Empty of course are still the most powerful beings. And then there’s Michael and you’re half archangel so you’re not that weak yourself. Billie is just a glorified reaper.”  
“Yeah, maybe, but I’m still dead.”  
“Oh yes, well, nothing you auntie can’t fix”, Amara giggled. And then she told him her plan. It was reckless sure, but Jack couldn’t help but feel hopeful. And maybe a little scared.  
“Let’s do this.”, they smiled at each other.  
“Are you ready?” she asked, her fingers already in a snipping position.  
Jack took one last look around.  
“This. This truly is paradise. I want to show it to them. To everyone. I’ll find a way to bring everyone to paradise.”  
He smiled with one corner of his mouth. Then he nodded, indicating he was ready.  
“You’ll do great, kid. I believe in you.”  
Snap.


	6. Girls' Day Out

It was pitch black inside the cave. The walls felt wet. If one wasn’t careful they could easily trip over the uneven ground or hit their head on the support beams. There was a treasure hidden deep inside the mountain, but whoever tried to find it would be dead before they even got close to reaching it. The cave was hidden well.  
Outside, the moon was high up in the sky. The night was clear. In the distance, the sounds of cars broke the silence.  
Hurried steps headed towards the highway, away from the cave. Someone was running for their life. It was a raven haired girl, not much older than twenty.  
She ran faster and faster. A terrible inhuman scream echoed through the woods. Something came after her. She couldn’t see what it was. Only the fluttering and cracking of trees behind her gave away that her pursuer still hadn’t let her go.  
The noise got louder and louder the closer the one chasing her got.  
Something grabbed her arm. The girl screamed.  
Over a hundred and fifty miles south and several days earlier, Patience woke up, also screaming and gasping for air.  
“Kaia”.

It had been three weeks. Three long, excruciating weeks since Billie took over. Since Eileen was gone.  
Sam was hunting. Dean accompanied him whenever possible but sometimes he stayed home with Cas, as if he was trying to catch up on all the time they missed together because he was being a dumbass. Cas was the only reason he didn’t spiral into lowkey suicidal behavior like his brother.  
“Hey, Dean?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Do we have any more paint?”  
Dean got up from the sofa to peek through the door into Cas’s room.  
“We bought you new stuff yesterday.”  
The angel stood in the middle of the room, only wearing a t-shirt and pyjama pants, both covered in dried paint in every color of the rainbow. The brush was tucked behind his ear. On the canvas behind him was a half finished scene depicting… something. Dean wasn’t really sure what though.  
Cas noticed the riddled look on his friend's face.  
“Yeah, I don’t know either. I can’t control this.”  
“Are those… dead bodies?”, Dean asked, pointing at the red smudges in the lower half of the painting.  
Cas squinted. “I think so. So, paint?”  
“I think there’s more in the garage.”

Oh Cas. Cas, well he was an artist now, apparently. Against his will. When the Mark held Amara it seeked destruction and death.  
Now that it trapped Chuck -- they had found out -- the Mark started to yearn for other things. God was the light -- the creator -- so everything it wanted was for Cas to make stuff, whether it was art or music or a two hundred thousand words fanfiction about two random guys in the background of that one scene from Voltron who had about two minutes of screentime across the entire show and not a single line of dialogue.  
When Sam came back, Cas was finished with his art. It turned out that the red smudges were in fact corpses -- of children no less -- rotting in a field of flowers.  
They had stopped assigning any meaning to the stuff the angel created, they just put it up with the rest of them.  
Sam found the two sitting on the sofa and watching TV, Cas his head on Dean’s shoulder. He saw the painting.  
“Cute”, he commented.  
“How was the hunt?”, Dean asked.  
Sam fell down on the couch, next to them.  
“Exhausting. But the djinn’s dead, so that’s something. What’s on?”  
“Documentary about ancient craftsmanship in Venezuela.”  
“Ah”, Sam said, eyebrows raised.  
“He’s making me watch it.”, Dean explained.  
Cas shrugged. “You made me watch all of your western flicks and sci-fi movies and so on.”  
Dean didn’t respond. They acted like an old married couple which made Sam really happy but also melancholic. He missed Eileen so much.  
Cas got up and stretched. “I’ll write something.”, he proclaimed.  
“If it’s more music try keeping it down. I don’t need to hear you try using a guitar at three in the morning -- again.”  
“I’ll try.”, he promised but it didn’t sound too genuine.  
After he left the room Sam sighed, examining the pictures on the wall.  
“I don’t know if I’m happy with how the Mark is affecting him”, he said.  
“Well it’s better than him going around, murdering people.”, Dean drained his bottle to the last drop then turned off the TV.  
Sam’s eyes were on the canvas that was clearly a ripoff of that one scene from the Lion King where Rafiki held up Simba for the entire kingdom to see, except all the animal’s bodies had been turned inside out in gruesome detail.  
“Is it?”, he asked.

Patience had told the others about her vision.  
“Kaia’s back?”, Claire asked. She was excited. Since Sam had called a few months ago, she had tried everything to find a way to open up a rift. Nothing had worked.  
“We have to find her. Do you recall anything else? Do you have any idea where she is?”  
Patience shook her head. Jody grabbed both of them reassuringly by their shoulders.  
“We’ll find her. I’m gonna call Donna.”

Donna didn’t let them wait. Within one hour she was on their doorstep. Alex returned from work shortly after. They were assembled in the living room, ready to go. But where?  
Patience tried to think of any sort of clues.  
“She was in the woods somewhere. I’m pretty sure I heard a road in the distance.”  
That didn’t narrow it down. Alex asked questions, trying to get closer to a definitive answer.  
“What about mountains?”  
“It was hilly, but no big mountains, no.”  
“Any rivers or lakes?”  
“No.”  
“Road signs?”  
“It was the middle of the woods.”  
“What kinds of trees?”, Donna joined in.  
“Uh, mostly pines and evergreens, I think.”  
“How big?”  
“I… I don’t know, not that tall. Not much taller than this house.”  
Jody spread out a map of the US on the table. Slowly, she began crossing out all the areas they could eliminate. That left about a third of the country.  
“What about the cave? Was it natural?”  
“Uh -- no, it had support beams and I’m pretty sure there were rails too. It must be some old abandoned mine.”  
“Okay, any hints on what they used to mine there?”  
Patience tapped her forehead, trying to remember.  
“I don’t know.”  
“Do you remember any light pollution? Maybe from a big city?”  
Patience thought about it, but she hadn’t paid attention. She wasn’t even sure whether Kaia was where she had seen her. Maybe she wouldn’t get there for another few days or even months.  
“I -- I have no idea, I’m sorry.”, she felt her throat closing up.  
Donna saw that the girl was about to cry. She got up, taking her by the hands, squeezing them reassuringly.  
“It’s okay. No one is mad at you. We’re all just worried, but you’re okay. Okay?”  
Patience nodded.  
“Oki dokes.”, Donna said quietly.  
“What about the weather?”, Alex asked.  
“It was a clear sky. And cold. There was an airplane.”  
“Airplane? That’s good. Maybe we can determine which one it is. Do you have any idea what time it could’ve been?”  
Patience shrugged. “It was dark, there was the moon. Maybe 2 or 3 am?”  
“What did the moon look like?”, Jody asked.  
Patience tried to remember. “I think it was full”  
“Full moon’s in three days.”, Alex said, looking up from the calendar on her phone.  
“So what you saw probably happens then, somewhere in the woods, at night, near a road and there’s an airplane flying over it.”, Jody summed up what they had just learned.  
“I’ll check the air plane tracking apps and so on.”, Alex volunteered.  
“Okay great. I’ll see what I can find about abandoned mines.”  
It wasn’t much, but it was start. Claire, who hadn’t said anything the entire time, started to feel something. A glimmer of hope.

That’s how the boys’ days went. They had no way of finding Billie and maybe killing her. Not that that would solve anything -- that wouldn’t bring any of the people they lost back. They also couldn’t contact Rowena or any of her demons. Billie had shut the gates to Heaven and Hell. No one could come in -- they had tried -- and no one could come out.  
Same thing with Heaven and when they asked Michael for help, maybe another portal, he refused:

“Look”, he said while restocking shelves.  
“Billie doesn’t touch me because she’s afraid of me. And honestly, neither me nor my vessel really care. This isn’t an apocalypse, barely any people died and the ones that did, well they did defy the rules.”  
“Because the rules are stupid!”, Dean screamed in his face.  
Michael rolled his eyes. “Billie’s strict, but she’s fine. And she doesn’t intervene, usually, unlike my dad. If you don’t fuck up collosically, she’ll leave you alone. Besides, even if you do manage to kill her, who becomes the next God then? Probably someone meaner than her. Someone who’s in it for the power and runs us all into ruin.”  
The Winchesters looked at him. “You could…”  
Michael and Adam burst out laughing.  
“No, thank you, I have no interest in ruling. I’m content with just... this.”, he waved with the shirt he was in the middle of hanging up “A normal life.”  
“Why do we even need a God?”, Sam asked.  
Michael didn’t answer that.  
“Sorry kids, you’re on your own with this one. Call me, when there’s any actual trouble. Or, you know what? Don’t.”

Still, the time Sam didn’t spend hunting, talking with Cas or Dean or sleeping, he spent digging through the lore. Especially the books Rowena had left him.  
To no effect.  
At some point he lost it. “Why is it so hard to find useful shit? Why can’t I just google how do I kill Death and bring back the people we’ve lost? and then I find exactly what I’m looking for? Someone should make that!”  
Cas sat on the table next to him, strumming his guitar, trying to come up with a good chord progression.  
“Do it then.”, he said. “Creation is the key to happiness, my friend… you think that’s a good lyric?”  
Sam stared at him. “No, that sounds terrible.”  
“Yeah…”, Cas rubbed his stubbly chin.  
“...You’re still gonna use it, aren’t you?”  
“Yeah. But I mean it, do it. Make an app or something. If anyone’s qualified to make a register of all this hunting stuff, it’s you.”  
Strangely enough, Sam actually got excited about the idea.

They found three possible locations. Two were about three hours from Sioux Falls, one was on the other side of the country.  
“Let’s hope it’s one of these.”, Alex said.  
“What are we waiting for, let’s go!”, Claire said impatiently.

“Not this one.”, Patience determined when they wandered through the woods. The trees were too close to one another, one could barely see the sky. This wasn’t it.  
So they got back in the cars and drove to the second location.  
As soon as she opened the car door, she knew this was the place. Details, she had completely forgotten about, shot through her brain. The smell in the air. The sound of the dead leaves on the ground.  
She nodded.  
They spread out to cover more of the area. Jody and Claire walked together. The girl’s expression was determined, Jody was worried about her.  
“I know how important Kaia is to you, but please don’t do anything reckless.”  
“I failed her. I left her in that place to die! I didn’t even try to get her body out back then and now she’s all alone and in danger! I have to help her, Jody. At any cost.”  
Jody shook her head. She knew there was no reasoning with her.  
“just don’t get yourself killed, okay?”  
“Trying my best.”

Kaia woke up. It was dark. She was lying on a hard surface. Cement?  
Disoriented, she tried to make sense of the situation. For months, all she had experienced were the wet muddy ground and water pouring from the sky in a never ending rain. Lately, the sky had become dark. The sun hadn’t risen anymore. The winds had gotten stronger, the air dryer. She had smelled the smoke from miles away.  
In her dreams she had seen her home. She had seen the Winchesters. One of them -- Dean -- attacked her once but his eyes were glowing strange. She was attacked by others too. Strange monsters, with large fangs, but she killed all of them with her spear.  
By now she had figured out that she was seeing everything through the eyes of her alternate self. The one who wounded her then nursed her back to health before she ultimately vanished, leaving her alone in a wet, sad little world alongside a giant, who would eat her as soon as he realised she wasn’t his Kaia and wouldn’t bring him any food. A few nights ago she heard it howling in pain. It was dying. As was the rest of this mudball. She tried running away from the fires, but she knew she couldn’t outrun the end.  
Now, she was inside a building. How? Staggeringly, she got up, searching for a way out of the abandoned place. It was a clear sky. She could see contrails, which must’ve meant she was actually home. Finally! But how?  
After a day of wandering around the woods she got to a road. Actual cars driven by other humans. Kaia never really liked other people but just seeing them exist made her cry.  
“What have we here? A dreamwalker? My, my, this ought to be a fine feast.”  
Kaia turned around.  
A woman approached her.  
“Who are you?” and how do you know what I am?  
The last thing Kaia remembered was the woman smiling then she attacked and everything went blank.

“Did you guys find anything?”, Claire asked, when they reunited.  
The others shook their heads.  
“How’s that possible? Where’s the mine? We know it’s here somewhere! You said this was the place!”  
“And it is! I’m one hundred percent sure!”, Patience defended herself.  
“Then where is she?”, her voice was cracking. It’s been almost two years since she had met Kaia. Still, she thought about her almost every night. Claire was the reason she was gone. If she hadn’t been so stupid back then, Kaia would still be here.  
“Claire! We’ll find her, okay?”, Donna said.  
Claire took a deep breath and forced the tears down. Now wasn’t the time for a mental breakdown.  
“I’m sorry.”, she apologized to Patience.  
She shook her head.  
“It’s all good.”  
“But what are we gonna do now?”, Alex asked. “Just wait in the woods, til Kaia shows up?”  
That’s exactly what they did.

“Sammy, are you in here?”, Dean entered one of the many archive rooms. This was the one they dumped all their old hunting stuff in. The things they never really used anymore, because the creatures they killed with these tools were either too rare or because they were broken or otherwise outdated.  
“I’m here”, the voice came from a pile of junk in the far corner of the room.  
When Dean got closer he could see Sam, sitting on the floor, lots of smaller piles around him, a notebook with his indecipherable writing in his lab.  
“What are you doing?”  
“Inventory.”, he explained. Dean still looked puzzled so his brother started elaborating.  
“See, we’ve never even looked through half of the stuff in the bunker, because we never had the time or the energy. We just look through the books, but maybe we have some cool gadgets that we don’t even know about.”  
Dean nodded. “Okay, but why now?”  
Sam shrugged. “I need something to do. And I actually want to do the thing I talked to Cas about.”  
“You mean the google for hunters thing?”  
“Yeah. Remember how important dad’s journal was to us, when we first started? Without that we would’ve been totally lost. I want to do that, but with everything we’ve learned since then.”  
He asked if Dean wanted to help. He didn’t, which wasn’t really surprising. He could imagine a bazillion things that were more fascinating than doing inventory. Like rewatching Die Hard for the hundredth time, for example.

It was the middle of the night. The moon was high in the sky, looming over the woods, covering them in silver light.  
Kaia saw none of it. She was trapped in a cave. Had been, for almost three weeks. The woman hadn’t laid a finger on her yet, but that would change eventually. She was a monster. Kaia didn't know which one, but she was fairly certain that she would eat her. Or suck her blood or life force or whatever. Point was, she would die, consumed by this white-haired lady.  
That night, the woman was nowhere to be seen. That happened from time to time.  
The one good thing about this was that she got part of her strength back. The woman fed Kaia all sorts of crap, so she would get fatter so she would have more to eat herself. The concept was disgusting but having to survive on basically nothing but lizard the past two years really put things into perspective.  
Fortunately, the rope the woman had used to tie Kaia up wasn’t very secure. She had spent the last few days loosening it. If Kaia wasn’t terrified of her captor, she could’ve run two days ago.  
But tonight was the night. The woman was gone. Kaia got up. The cave was dark. She had one hand on the wall and followed the fresh breeze coming from the exit.  
The full moon seemed incredibly bright. Still no sign of the monster. Kaia ran, quietly. When she had put about half a mile between her and the cave she heard a deafening screech. Her missing had been noticed. She ran faster.  
A noise came her way. It sounded like two leather rags being clapped together over and over again. It got louder by the second. Kaia started sobbing, running even faster.  
Suddenly something grabbed her hand. She squealed. The monster had got her. She shut her eyes. It was pressing her against a tree.  
“Kaia!”, someone whispered. That voice. It wasn’t the woman it was… Kaia opened her eyes.  
“Claire?”, she asked. Her voice was hoarse. She hadn’t used it in so long.  
The dreamwalker fell into the hunter’s arms. The sobbing got worse. For a brief moment they forgot all about the monster. They were together again. Finally.  
“We have to go.”, Claire said. “I’ll notify the others, rendezvous point is the van.”  
Kaia nodded. Claire took her by the hand and they kept running, while Claire sent the message to the rest. She was smiling like a child, she couldn’t help it.  
The noise got louder, but they saw nothing. Not yet, anyway.  
“Claire! Kaia!”, Jody, Donna, Patience and Alex were waiting at the car.  
Jody went in for a hug.  
“No time, we have to go now!”, Claire interrupted her. Alex already sat in the driver’s seat. They got in and she punched the gas.  
“I’m so glad to see you’re alive.”, Jody told Kaia, while squeezing her shoulder.  
“How did you find me?”, she asked. Her favorite people were all here. The only ones she had kind of felt at home with but hadn’t had enough time with to even get to know them. They could’ve been her new family if things hadn’t turned out differently.  
“I had a vision”, Patience said.  
BOOM!  
Before she could explain any further, something landed on the roof, shaking the entire car, almost causing Alex to drive into the trench, but she managed to hold on to the steering wheel.  
“Motherfucker!”, Donna pulled her gun out. She was riding shotgun and opened the window.  
“Keep it steady!”, she yelled.  
“Trying!”  
Donna stuck her head out of the window and started shooting at whatever landed on the roof. Jody, who sat behind Alex did the same. She took her shot, before she could see the creature. It was a normal woman, apart from her eyes. They looked snake-like. She and Donna kept shooting but that only made her more angry. She grabbed Jody’s gun. It melted in her hands. Terrified, Jody let go, before it burned her flesh.  
“Drive faster, Alex!”, she shouted.  
Alex grunted as a response. Now Claire got up while grabbing a baseball bat from the seat behind her, wound down her window and looked outside herself. Donna kept just barely out of reach of the creature's hands. Headshot after headshot did nothing to her.  
With all her strength she took a swing. The woman screeched.  
“Get off!”, Claire yelled.  
Up ahead, Donna saw them steering towards a cliff. The road took a sharp right turn right before the edge. That gave her an idea. She got back into her seat.  
“You see that?”, she asked Alex, pointing at the abyss. Alex understood immediately.  
“Kaia, get Mills back into the car!”, Donna ordered.  
After that, she stuck her head back out. “Wait for the right moment!”, she yelled through the wind. Claire saw what she meant.  
When they took the hard turn, the monster was off balance. Claire used all her strength to hit her with one blow. It was powerful enough to push her off the roof, down the cliff.  
Alex punched the gas. They flew over the highway. No other cars in sight. The next city was up ahead, only a mile from them.  
Patience looked through the rear window. When they were halfway there, she saw it. A gigantic shadow rose up into the air. Big, leathery wings parting the air, lifting the creature up. A screech, more angry than the last they heard.  
It flew into the night, a dark shadow against the dark sky, it’s eyes sparking brighter than the stars.

“Claire what?”, Sam asked.  
Jody had called him and told him everything that happened.  
“She pushed a dragon off our car’s roof with a baseball bat. You didn’t mishear.”  
Sam paced the floor.  
“How do you know it was a dragon?”  
“Because it turned into a fucking dragon!”, Patience yelled from the off.  
“Alright. Did it have yellow snake eyes?”  
“Yes, and wings and scales too!”  
“Okay.”  
“How do we kill it?”, Claire asked. She and Kaia sat on the motel bed.  
Sam digged through his memories. “I only encountered a dragon once. Apparently the only way you can kill it is with a blade forged in dragon’s blood or something.”  
Jody frowned. “How do we find something like that?”  
“I think I can help you with that. Dean got one from this lady. If we didn’t throw it away -- which I don’t think we’d do -- it’s somewhere in the bunker. I’ll find it.”  
“Okay, great! I’ll text you the address. Thank you, Sam!”  
“Thank you, Sam!”, the others said, then Jody ended the call.  
Sam went back into the archive room. It was in pure chaos. He sighed and got to work.

Kaia and Claire were the only one’s left in the motel room. Jody, Alex and Patience got dinner and Donna sat outside, keeping watch.  
“I’m sorry”, it came bursting out of Claire.  
Kaia looked at her. “For what?”  
“That you got hurt. That I left you there, all alone. I should’ve stayed or I should’ve gotten you out or…”  
“Claire! It’s okay. I decided to go with you to that place, it wasn’t your fault. I took the shot. I wanted to save you.”  
Kaia took her hand and squeezed it. “because you made me feel safe.”  
“But you weren’t.”  
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”  
They sat in silence. Kaia was playing with the rings on Claire’s fingers.  
“Do you know how?”  
Claire looked up, not sure what she meant.  
“How did I come back? I -- I just remember waking up, but I thought Jack was the only one who could open portals. And I thought he was dead.”  
Claire shook her head.  
“I don’t know, it probably has something to do with the Winchesters -- big surprise. From what Jody told me they imprisoned God and then Death started ruling the galaxy and she hates chaos, so she just... ordered things.”  
Kaia nodded then she burst out laughing.  
“I’m not kidding!”, Claire promised.  
Kaia couldn’t stop giggling. “I know.”, she said in tears. “That’s what makes it so funny.”  
Claire laughed too. It sounded absolutely ridiculous. If she wasn’t a hunter and if her dad's empty body wasn’t an angel’s vessel she wouldn’t have believed a single word in that sentence.

Sam was almost there. When he told the others where he was going, Cas was in the middle of his next painting.  
“What’s that?”, Sam asked.  
“Not sure. I think it might be the queen of that pack of djinn I encountered in syria? My wife? Wonder how she’s doing.”  
Sam decided not to comment on that.  
“What’s that?”, Cas asked back and pointed at the sword in Sam’s hand. About half of the blade was missing.  
“Sword of Bruncvik. From an old case. Dean broke it in half but it still works. Jody and the girls found Kaia.”  
“This world’s Kaia?”  
“Yes. And now they have to fight a dragon, I think. Wanna come?”  
Cas shook his head. He wasn’t sure meeting Claire was such a good idea. He loved the girl almost as if she was his own daughter and not Jimmy’s but after all this time, he still felt his heart sinking whenever she looked at him, knowing that it was him and not her father looking back.  
“No, I’m good, thanks.”  
“What about Dean, where is he?”  
“groceries.”, Cas said. “And I got him to buy me new guitar strings.”  
“Aight, see ya later.”  
So Sam drove alone. When he got there, Donna greeted him.  
“It’s so good to see you! How are ya holding up?”  
“Good enough.”, Sam said. They went inside. Sam was offered the leftover sushi from their lunch.  
He hugged Kaia, glad to have her back.  
“Do you know how your evil twin’s doing?”, he asked.  
Kaia shook her head. “I haven’t had any visions since I came back.”  
Sam hoped that didn’t mean that dark Kaia had died along with her world. He had to. Otherwise he would have to come to terms with the fact that all his other friends from the apocalypse world must’ve died too and he wasn’t ready to deal with that. One loss at a time.

They knew the dragon would come after them eventually. They took off after Sam finished his meal so as to not endanger any of the other residents in the motel.  
A few streets down in the outskirts of the city they found an abandoned house where they could barricade themselves.  
Sam and Alex and Donna and Patience split up into teams to guard the premises. Jody and Claire stayed inside, ready to protect Kaia. Jody held on to the sword.  
“Can I use it?”, Claire asked.  
“No.”  
“Come on, Jody! I can handle a sword, trust me!”, Claire begged. Jody saw her fascinated glance at the broken blade.  
“You’re going to try and swing it around like a lightsaber. Don’t give that look, I know you will.”  
The door flung open. The dragon now in human form again sneered.  
“Give me the dreamwalker! She’s my meat!”  
No time for arguments, Jody readied the sword.  
“No, I’m not!”, Kaia screamed back.  
The dragon snarled at the sight of the sword. She recognized what it was.  
“You’re not fast enough!”  
“Oh yeah? Try me!”  
She attacked. Jody was ready to strike. The others appeared at the door.  
“The dragon! It…”, Patience yelled.  
“I know! Get back, you’re only putting yourselves in danger when you don’t have the sword!” They did as they were told.  
The dragon reached for Jody’s neck. She deflected the attack with the sword. The creature hissed and backed off. Its eyes changed.  
Now Jody was the one attacking. The dragon did a half turn and dodged the blow with ease.  
Jody heard something flapping and a gush of wind pushed her backwards into a wall so hard, it took her breath away. Her whole body was aching.The way to Kaia and Claire was clear for the monster now. It hurried towards them. Jody groaned but she followed it, sword in both hands.  
She sliced and a deep cut appeared in the dragon’s back. A dark liquid -- dragon’s blood -- came gushing out of the wound. Furiously it turned around and hit her with its hand. Jody dropped the sword as she was thrown across the room. It fell, clattering on the ground. The dragon’s mouth twisted into a sickening smile.  
“Jody!”, Claire cried, but the woman didn’t get back up.  
Their attacker turned back around facing them, growing bigger and bigger, the closer she got. Hands turned into claws, teeth into fangs, skin into scales. The neck’s length increased as it started walking on all fours. From the shoulderblades leathery wings grew, faster and faster. The ceiling was too low, cracks started forming, dust drizzling down on them.  
At last, a fully transformed dragon loomed over the girls. Its breath burned in Claire’s lungs, but she put herself between Kaia and the creature anyway, determined to protect her this time.  
“Claire!”, Patience yelled her name. She had snuck into the room to the sword. Sam and Donna dragged the unconscious Jody out the room. With a swift motion, Patience kicked it across the floor. Claire picked up the sword of Bruncvik.  
The dragon was enraged. It beat its wings and the house started to collapse. Patience was already out the door.  
Kaia grabbed Claire by the hand. “Come on!”  
But it was too late. The way to the entry was blocked. Chunks of cement tumbled down all around them. In a desperate move, Kaia grabbed the tail of the beast as it tried taking off. Claire saw what she was doing and mimicked her. The dragon didn’t even notice the extra weight, not until they were at least fifteen feet in the air far enough from the collapsing building. It tried shaking them loose, to no effect.  
They let go, as soon as it landed on the street, only stumbling a little. Claire held up the sword instantly in an effort to shield them from whatever the dragon would do next.  
She parried one blow by its large talons after the other. Kaia could do nothing but stand there in awe. There was just something about fighting dragons with a sword.  
The beast snarled and showed its teeth, lifting its head.  
Claire took the opportunity. She dashed ahead -- sword in both hands -- and tried piercing its throat. There was an ugly sound while the broken blade slid over the dragon’s scales, barely making a dent. Claire backed off.  
“I can’t get through the skin! We’re never gonna beat it this way.”  
Kaia clenched her teeth.  
“It’s okay, just get out of here.”  
Claire thought she misheard.  
“It wants me, right? If…”  
“Shut up!”, they looked each other in the eyes “I’m not leaving you ever again, okay? I’ve got an idea.”  
Before she could explain, the dragon attacked again. The roar was deafening but left its mouth wide open. She waited until its head was close enough for her to smell its bad breath, then she drew out and ran the sword through the dragon’s teeth right into its throat.  
The creature stopped mid motion and gagged, its whole body trembling. The snake eyes lost focus and rolled up into the skull. Then it went stiff and toppled over.  
It was dead.  
“You did it!”, Kaia said, her voice equally excited and surprised. Claire didn’t turn around.  
“Claire?”  
Claire fell over, her entire body covered in blood.  
“No. No no no no no no.”, Kaia kept mumbling as she rushed over.  
She cradled the other girl in her arms and screamed for help.

They rushed back to the bunker. Claire had been bitten. According to whatever book Sam had read about the matter, dragon’s teeth were poisonous. The wound wouldn’t start healing or stop bleeding until they got the antidote so a hospital wouldn’t do much good.  
Jody, who had regained consciousness, refused to leave her daughter alone, whether she had a concussion or not. Sam drove one of the cars so Donna was the one to call Dean and tell him to get the ingredients ready.  
“...sheep's milk, python scales. Got it. We’re on it!”  
Sam prayed they had everything they needed. Patience sat in the back.  
“I should’ve seen something. What’s the point in being a psychic if I can’t even control it?”  
“It’s okay sweetie. You’re the reason we got Kaia back.”, Donna tried reassuring her. They all had been pretty useless. None of them had been able to protect Claire.  
“Visions are messy. And complicated. I used to have ‘em and I still couldn’t save everybody, but Claire’s gonna be okay. We have an antidote, we just have to get her back to the bunker.”  
Patience nodded.

Carefully, they put her onto the table. Kaia was holding her hand. Claire wasn’t entirely unconscious, she kept moaning and muttering. Her shirt was in bloody tatters. The wound was in her belly.  
Dean poured the antidote into her wound.  
“Is it working?”, Jody asked.  
“Don’t know”, Cas studied the injury. He held his index and middle finger to her forehead.  
“I can’t heal her.”  
“What?”, Jody’s harsh reaction made him feel even worse. Claire started gasping. Cas could feel the girl dying. She had gotten the antivenom too late. She had minutes at most.  
“I -- she is -- I’m sorry.”  
“No. No, you’re lying!”, she burst into tears. Alex swayed. Donna caught her, holding her tight.  
Patience felt light headed. She faced in an out of reality. She heard footsteps. A dazzling light. Then she was back, seeing all the others gathered around the dying girl.  
“Someone’s coming.”  
The door burst open. They all looked up at the noise, but whoever it was was already running down the stairs.  
“Not today.”, the boy said. With one swift motion he gently made them step away from Claire.  
He took a deep breath -- closing his eyes -- then he pressed his hands onto her wound.  
As he breathed out, a high pitched sound ringed in the others' ears.  
His eyes glowed bright golden. Then the noise faded. For a second, Claire didn’t breathe at all, then her eyes fluttered open and she gasped for air. She said up straight. Her wound was gone.  
Everyone -- including her -- stared at the boy who saved her. Jack stared back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't have much time to write last week so this and parts of the epilogue are everything I have prepared right now. Hopefully, I'll get to write next week.  
> If I messed up any lore about the dragons in spn, I don't rlly care, sorry. I read a few wiki entries but I couldn't bring myself to rewatch that one ep in s6 where they actually slay one. If anything, writing this ff just showed me how much spn lore there is and how little I remember about any of it.  
> Anyways, hope you had fun.


	7. Language of Love

People just kept coming back from the dead, was Dean’s first thought when he saw Jack.  
They stood there like a freeze frame of a very bizarre scene. No one moved, no one talked, no one even breathed. All of them just stared at the nephilim, standing there, having just healed Claire who had been as good as dead. Jody’s eyes were still swollen with tears. Donna was holding her. Kaia still held up the hand she was holding Claire’s with.  
Finally, Jack cleared his throat.  
“Hi. It’s me, Jack.”  
Cas leaped forward and almost strangled the kid when he hugged him.  
Sam was there a second later and hugged both Jack and Claire simultaneously. They all joined in, even Dean who hadn’t exactly been kind towards Jack the last time they saw each other.  
Some of them were standing, the others had to sit on or lean over the table. Jody was crying again. So were Patience, Kaia and Sam.

Jody, Donna and the girls had left. Now it was only them.  
“Tell me again, how you did it.”, Sam asked.  
“I… couldn’t fall asleep, so the Empty let me go, then I walked until I found the Garden and my grand aunt zapped me back to life. It’s not that complicated.”  
Sam coughed, amused. He was so glad to have his son back. So was Cas. He was so overjoyed the Mark couldn’t even take effect on him. He spent almost twelve consecutive hours without even touching any of his arts and crafts stuff.  
Dean was unusually quiet. He was glad Jack was back -- no question there -- he just didn’t know what to do with his feelings, like always. He knew he would have to apologize. For trying to kill him. For not having his back when he needed it the most. Basically, for being a terrible human being.  
Jack had told them about what he had been up to though he left out parts about how he got the Empty to let him leave. He wasn’t going to expose Cas’s secret.  
“Damn it, this was all supposed to be over!”, Dean cursed, when he told them how he wasn’t allowed into heaven.  
“I’ve had it up to here with good people not getting to go up there. Bunch of bastards. Everyone. Especially Billie with her gatekeeping shit.”  
Jack sighed. He had understood something while he walked in the Between.  
“It was never gonna be this easy, Dean. Maybe Chuck is locked away and he can’t control our lives anymore but just because the writer stops writing doesn’t mean that all the framework, everything he sat up suddenly disappears. Billie isn’t evil, she’s just one of his creations. One that still sticks to the script, to the character motivation he wrote for her -- for everyone.  
“Let’s face it, he probably planned something absurd like this. Billie taking over, restoring order and running the world into ruin. Another apocalypse, the Winchesters driven to the edge, yet again. Alas, the show must go on, that type of thing.”  
Sam scoffed. That definitely sounded like the Chuck he knew. That didn’t solve their problems though.  
“So what should we do?”, he asked the kid.  
Jack fiddled with the handle of the rucksack he had brought with him.  
“Tear it down and build it back up.”, he looked at their faces. When they didn’t immediately start a protest, he continued.  
“I’m not just talking about Billie or -- or just our lives. I mean everything. We have to make this world, this universe our own. We take what Chuck wrote and created, everything, the monsters, Death, even Heaven and Hell and remake it! Not in his image, in everyone’s!”  
“Kid’s right.”, Dean agreed. “Chuck made the sandbox and then spent all his time playing in it by himself. Well screw that! We’ll take his shovels and his little buckets and create the sickest sandcastle, anyone has ever seen!”  
Cas and Sam exchanged a look. The metaphor was iffy, but they understood the sentiment.  
Cas glanced at the nephilim. He saw the potential he had, even after all this time, he just didn’t know “how?”, Sam asked what Cas thought.  
Jack wrestled with his fingers.  
“When I was dead -- again -- when I met Amara she said something to me, about how we can fix it. A plan. Maybe. But I have to try.”  
Dean started to feel excited. After weeks of absolutely nothing to do, they finally had something. Hope.  
“Alright then. Team Free Will 2.0 is back on track!”

Cas and Jack stood opposite of each other on a field a few miles east from the bunker. The Winchesters stood off to the side.  
The sun shone on their heads.  
The angel was very serious. He was back in his normal clothes.  
“Are you sure about this?”, he asked. Jack nodded.  
“I just hope it works without some big ritual.”  
Cas stretched out his arm with the Mark of Cain, waiting for Jack to take it. Then he closed his eyes and started pushing, mentally. He focused on the energy he felt pulsating through his body every waking minute and wanted to let it go, passing it on to the nephilim. Nothing happened. Then a shock went through his arm. Startled, he broke their connection.  
“Are you okay?”, Jack asked immediately. The Winchesters came running.  
Cas nodded, holding his tingling forearm.  
“Did it work?”, Dean asked, tenderly taking the angel’s hand. The Mark was still there.  
“No.”, Jack said. He and Amara had anticipated this. The plan itself was rather easy. Get the Mark, so Jack’s powers would be even greater than they already were and then tell Billie to beat it, hopefully without having to kill her. Problem was his body rejected the Mark. It was just like back then, when the Winchesters wanted him to get that tattoo. His body refused to take the damage it would receive and automatically started to heal itself as soon as the power of the seal even touched him.  
Cas stood up straight. “What do we do now?”  
“I’m prepared for this.”, Jack took the backpack from his shoulder and started rummaging through it. He pulled something out that was horribly familiar to Cas.  
“I destroyed that thing. How is it back?”  
Jack flipped the tablet around in his hand a couple of times.  
“God made the different versions of Metatron make like a bazillion copies of this thing, this is the one from two worlds over. Can’t you hear it? It sounds different, but Amara and I are pretty sure that it covers the same lore.”  
The angel tablet glowed dangerously.

Dean and Jack were in the Impala on their way to Donatello Redfield. Just the two of them. Dean nervously tapped on the steering wheel the entire time.  
“Jack.”, Dean started. Jack didn’t want to have this conversation. He was scared of whatever Dean had to say.  
“You don’t need to apologize for wanting to kill me or tricking me into the Ma’lak Box, I get it. And you don’t have to forgive me either. I know what I did and I’m so sorry for… everything.”.  
Jack bit on his thumb, looking out of the window, trying his best not to cry. He had forced down all his guilt and sadness and all the stuff that came with getting his soul back as far as he could because he had stuff to do. A single tear escaped anyway.  
Dean saw it and slammed the breaks. Hard. He was in shock.  
“You’re crying.”, it sounded meaner than he intended to, he was just surprised.  
“What?”  
“No, I mean, you’re actually crying. Wait -- do you, like, feel stuff?”  
“Yeah, well, I was in the Garden and it restored my soul, so…”  
“So your soul is back? You’re yourself again?”  
Jack gripped his arms. “I -- I think so.”  
“Why didn’t you tell us right away?”  
He shook his head. He hadn’t really gotten to that part of the story yet. And it didn’t seem as important as all the other information that was essential to his plan. But he couldn’t even answer the question because Dean had pulled him into a hug. Jack started sobbing.  
“I’m -- I’m so sorry.”, the boy repeated over and over again.  
“It’s okay. Everything is okay. I forgive you. I’m sorry too.”, Dean comforted him, still holding the kid tight. He became painfully aware that Jack was barely three years old. And yet, he had had to deal with just as much shit -- if not more -- as the rest of his family. Had he been a normal kid, he wouldn’t have even been to preschool yet.

“Donatello, how are ya?”, Dean said as soon as the prophet opened the door. He walked right past him. Jack held up his hand.  
“Hello.”  
Donatello squinted at him. “You’re dead.”  
“Keep up with the news! Jack is very alive and very soulful.”, Dean wasn't sure if that last one was a word and if it meant what he wanted it to mean, but it didn’t matter, he was ecstatic. Then he remembered who he was talking to.  
“Sorry, it’s not bad to be soulless of course, I just…”, Donatello gestured for him to stop talking.  
“Who wants some tea?”

They sat down around his kitchen table. Jack got the angel tablet and put it in front of the prophet.  
“Can you find anything on it? About the Mark of Cain?”, Jack asked. The man took a good look. He carefully touched the tablet and his fingers traced some of the carved in runes.  
Jack and Dean shared a look. Dean raised his eyebrows and took a sip from his tea.  
The stone began humming strangely, Donatello pulled his arm away.  
“I cannot.”  
“What, it’s not on there?”, Dean asked, disappointed.  
“No, I’m pretty sure the information’s on there somewhere. I just can’t read it. It happened a few months ago. Around the time he” -- he pointed at Jack -- “died. My powers stopped working. I didn’t even notice, until you guys called to tell me you defeated the man himself. An event that colossal and I felt… nothing. No energy, no disturbance in the Force. And turns out I can’t read the word of God anymore either.”  
Jack shook his head. “how’s that possible? Maybe capturing Chuck cut your connection to him?”  
But Donatello didn’t look convinced.  
And Dean had an epiphany. “Kevin”, he said, stumped, lowering his cup of tea. He looked at the other two. They didn’t get it.  
“He was the prophet before Donatello.”  
“Yeah, but he died, didn’t he? Or did he come back to life too, like everyone else?”  
“No, but his soul was released from hell and didn’t wanna go back -- for obvious reasons.”  
“So?”  
“So, he’s wandering around as a ghost somewhere. Maybe your powers aren’t working because he is back in the world of the living? Maybe, he managed to hide from Billie somewhere.”  
“How, do we find him?”, Jack asked.  
“I guess we need seance.”

Sam hung up on his brother and went to tell Cas.  
He found him sitting in his room struggling with a crochet hook and a ball of very unruly wool.  
He was in the middle of talking, when Cas interrupted him.  
“Sam. I think I have to tell you something.” It sounded serious. Sam felt a lump in his throat. Cas’s tone made him uneasy. Something was up.  
“Everything okay?”  
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”, Cas replied, not looking at him but instead trying to light the wool on fire with his stare.  
“Uh… okay.”  
“Do you remember the first time Jack died? When I had to get him back from heaven? It didn’t exactly go as smoothly as I claimed.”  
Sam kept listening, not knowing where it would lead but afraid nonetheless.  
“Jack’s half archangel, so the Empty thought he belonged there with the other dead angels. So it attacked heaven, looking for the kid.”  
“What? Why didn’t you tell us.”  
Cas kept his yes on the wool.  
“Because the only way I could stop it from destroying everything and every one up there and letting Jack go was to promise it, I would go instead.”  
He saw up, right into Sam’s eyes.  
Neither of them was talking. Sam had a million questions that were all equally stupid. Why had he done it? Why hadn’t he told them sooner? Does Dean know? Finally, he decided on one that might at least sound a little more sensible.  
“How are you still here?”  
Cas chuckled. “Yeah, that’s the thing. The Empty wanted to strip me from my life when I experience the happiest moment of my life or whatever. Basically, I’m happy, I die. So I wasn’t really too scared of dying soon, with all the shit going on with Michael and Jack’s soul and Mary and Dean. But now… I can feel it, Sam. I -- with Jack being back -- I just…”  
Sam nodded. And got angry. At the universe. At another of Chuck’s stupid plotlines that had no business of still being relevant.  
“So happy ending basically means your death. So we’re screwed either way.”  
The angel rubbed his forehead.  
“I’m…”  
“Don’t you dare say I’m sorry. Look, we’ll figure it out. We always figure everything out. Jack got you back from the Empty once. We can do that again.”  
Cas met his eyes. He was doubting their chances. So was Sam.  
“Just, whenever you see me looking too happy tell me something sad, please.”  
Sam snickered. “I got you... Wait is that the reason you and Dean aren’t...?”, Sam’s voice trailed off.  
“Me and Dean aren’t what?”, Cas asked even though he was 99% sure what Sam wanted to ask.  
“Oh, nothing just… you know?”  
Cas furrowed his eyebrows.

The ritual was ready. They sat in a circle on the floor, pentagram and a few candles in the middle.  
“Aight, let’s get started.”, Sam held out his arms. They joined hands.  
“You know the words?”, Dean asked.  
“Yeah, I hope so.”, his brother answered.  
Jack squinted at the open book next to him. “Why does it mention Castiel by name?”  
Cas shrugged.  
“I have no idea.”  
Dean wanted to add to the conversation but Sam shut him down with a look. It was time. He started chanting.

“Aziel, Castiel, Lamisniel, Rabam, Erlei, et Belam  
Ego vos coniuro  
Per Deo verum  
Per Deo vivum”

The candles started flickering.

“Qui vos creavit,  
eos super montes et per eum  
Qui Adam et Evam formavit et per eum  
Qui mari pre abit aridum que fundarit  
Qui facit endulum quo spiritus ministrus suos inenuenda  
Qui fondasti terram super valiturum  
non en qui abit or, in seculum seculi”

Wind started picking up, coming from nowhere. It jerked at the shelfs and tables, almost drowning out Sam’s voice.

“Et vis est que venti betum,  
amictus eos super montes stabat aquae  
non en qui abit or, in seculum seculi  
Et evum formabit,  
vesti vectum amictus eus super montes stabat aquae  
Alpha grammaton  
Per hoc nomen et per hic per ius ionem  
Per tribius bovis”

The storm fell quiet. Kevin appeared in their middle.  
“AAGGHHH”, he screamed.  
Sam and Dean started screaming too. Sam let go off Jack’s hand and held his chest.  
“Dude”, he said.  
Kevin saw him sitting on the floor and his voice died as he recognized his environment. “You just summoned me out of nowhere, I was in Illinois a second ago, how am I supposed to react?”  
“Fair point.”  
They got up, Kevin and Jack got introduced.  
“How have you been?”, Sam asked.  
Kevin made a sound that could mean almost anything.  
“Did any reapers give you any trouble?”, Dean followed up.  
“Not really, I just kept wandering around. Didn’t go insane yet which is nice. Felt some huge energy surges. Was that you guys?”  
“Yeah, we trapped God.”  
“Ah”, Kevin nodded. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions. He didn’t wanna know.  
“I need your help”, Jack cut to the chase. He held up the tablet. Kevin’s expression didn’t warrant excitement.  
“I hate those things.”  
Dean nodded in full understanding.  
“Still, we do. I don’t know how up-to-date you are on supernatural affairs but after we locked up God Death took his place and things aren’t any better than before and we need your help to kill that bitch.”  
“We’re not killing her.”, Jack interrupted.  
“We’re not?”, Sam asked. “Why?”  
Jack took a breath. This was another thing he promised himself before he got back. “Because solving problems by just killing people simply results in more problems. Also killing is wrong. I don’t know, you seem to have forgotten that along the line somewhere. Doesn’t matter who it is or what they’ve done, I won’t let anyone kill anyone as long as I have the power to stop it.”  
The Winchesters both squinted at the same time.  
“So what do we do? Just convince her to be nice? Sing a -- a show tune and hope that she bags down?”, Dean argued.  
“Yeah, basically”, Jack said.  
“What, you wanna put on a musical?”, Dean really hoped Jack was kidding.  
“No, I -- just -- I have an idea. Just let me handle it.”  
Kevin burst out laughing.  
“I like him. So, what are we looking for exactly?”  
Jack told him what he needed him to find. Kevin got to work. Seeing his son so determined almost made Cas choke up. He felt it again. That hope. For the future. Oh no.  
“Sam?!”  
“Right -- uh --”, Sam tried to think of sad things which should be way easier than it actually was: “The ice caps are melting! Polar bears are dying! Starving puppies being abandoned by their mother! Uh -- a thousand years from now Dean and I will be dead and you will have to carry on without us! You’ll be alone and miserable for the rest of eternity!”  
“What the hell?”, Dean asked, confused.  
Sam gestured for him to ask again some other time.  
“Okay, I’m good. I mean, bad.”, Cas decided after repeating Sam’s words in his head three times.  
“Good.”  
Dean looked back and forth between the two, still not sure what this was about and not sure whether to be concerned or not.  
“You want a beer?”, Sam asked, probably to distract him.  
But Dean wasn’t about to say no.

“So you’re Lucifer’s son? That at least explains why you got so much divine energy oozing out of every pore of your body.”, Kevin studied the guy sitting on the opposite side of the table.  
“And you're three years old? And died two times already? Damn.”  
Jack shrugged. “That’s just life I guess. I’m glad to meet you. I knew your alternate self.”  
“Oh yeah? What’s he like?”, Kevin asked while skimming through the tablet.  
“Well he’s dead.”  
“Classic. What was he like, then?”  
“Scared, mostly. Michael forced him into doing his bidding.”  
Kevin looked up. “Is that how he died?”  
Jack kept silent, which was response enough.  
The prophet sighed. “I guess it’s nice to know that it could’ve been worse. Slightly at least. Oh, wait...”, he narrowed his eyes and leaned in on the tablet.  
“...this could be something.”, he didn’t specify, his mind completely focused on the passage he was trying to translate. Jack studied his furrowed eyebrows and his all too human mannerisms, from the way he wiggled with his left foot to the finger he used to track the line he was reading. He seemed so… alive.  
“How come you didn’t go insane?”, Jack asked. “I mean, you’re a ghost, that’s what ghost’s do, right?”  
Kevin looked up.  
“My theory is that I’m not like most other ghosts.”, he nervously tapped his fingers.  
“Most of them want something, they hold on to this realm because of revenge or some other unfinished business and not getting that is what ultimately drives them insane. But I… I don’t want anything apart from not going back. And I think the prophet powers got something to do with it too, but I’m not sure.”, he scratched the back of his head.  
“If what we’re trying to do works then I’ll make sure you never have to go back to hell, I promise.”, Jack looked serious as he said it.  
Kevin wasn’t sure what to make of the kid. He looked like they’d be the same age, but he was way younger making promises not even the wisest people would give. Maybe he was just naive. But maybe… maybe there was something to him.

“Tower of Babel”, Kevin looked very pleased as he said those words. He’d been working for four days straight without sleep which -- even when considering that he was a ghost -- was still impressive.  
“Tower of Babel”, Cas repeated and began to elaborate because neither Dean nor Jack had any sort of reaction to the name.  
“Back in the day -- and I mean way back, shortly after the great flood -- human’s got cocky and they tried building a tower that was so high, it would reach heaven. Before they could finish it God disrupted their work by bewitching the tongues of the workers so they could no longer understand one another. That’s why humans have so many different languages.”  
Sam tried to remember where he heard the story before. “It’s from Genesis, right?”  
Cas nodded.  
“And how does it transfer the Mark?”, Dean asked.  
“Well the tablet suggests that the tower doesn't just confuse languages, but every skill you have. Language in itself is a skill, right? You learn it. According to the tablet, if you go into the tower and go up to the unfinished top, its power should get strong enough to make the switch for you, no weird rituals required.”  
Sam wasn’t convinced.  
“But the Mark is a curse not a skill, is it? I mean, Cas didn’t learn it. He just… got it?”  
“Yeah, but it’s not something he had from birth, it’s kind of like a power-up. That still counts, I think.”  
Jack, who hadn’t said anything up to now had his doubts too. Kevin could see them in his expression.  
“Look, these parts of the scripture, they read like author’s notes at best. The other stuff on here, the stuff I translated back then, had proper structure and wording and was very specific but this… it’s like God himself doesn't even know if what he wrote is true. It’s just bullet points and especially everything around the Mark transfer reads more like a question than a definite answer.”  
Cas sighed.  
“I guess that means we’re officially off script. Not even Chuck planned this far ahead.”  
“We still have to try. Does it say where the tower is located?”, Jack asked, but Kevin shook his head.  
Sam’s mind went through all the books and articles and whatnot he’d been reading lately. “Isn't it in Babylon? Modern day Iraq?”  
“You’re thinking of the temple dedicated to Marduk. Most historians who think that the tower was real, think it was that temple whose ruins are in Babylon, yes. But that’s not the Tower of Babel”  
“I know where it is though”, the angel said. “Been there a long time ago when they built it.”  
“I can take us there.”, Jack said, flapping his angel wings for emphasis. Then he remembered that Cas was the only one who saw them.  
“Aight then. Off we go.”, Dean declared.

Night fell. They stood at the base of a mountain overseeing an everlasting wasteland. The sun set fast and the temperature faster. The stars rose over an infinite sky with no pollution blocking their light.  
“Where’s the tower?”, Sam looked around. There wasn’t a single man made structure in sight let alone a tower that was supposed to reach heaven.  
Cas kicked one of the bigger boulders that were scattered around here.  
“That’s the tower.”  
“What, you mean the…?”  
“The mountain, yes.”  
Dean eyed the rocky surface. “It doesn’t look like something humans made.”  
Cas sighed “Well it has been a little over a few thousand years since any human tried cleaning up the place.”  
“The entrance’s over there.”, Jack pointed toward a boulder that didn’t look any different then the other billion lying around.  
They would have to dig, presumably. Dean sighed. They hadn’t brought any shovels with them and the idea of manual labour in the dropping temperatures didn’t really appeal to him.  
Thankfully, they had a nephilim and an angel with a power-up on their side. Two seconds later the path was clear and they entered the tower. 

It got worse, the higher they got.  
“Also ich fühl bis jetzt gar nichts. Bist du dir sicher, dass das hier wirklich der Turm von Babel ist?”, Sam asked.  
Dean stared at him in utter confusion.  
“Qu’est-ce que tu a dit?”  
“Oh great, it begins”, Cas said. Being an angel, he could basically speak every language, which meant the first stage of the tower's curse wouldn’t really affect him.  
“It’s the right tower.”, he reassured Sam. He nodded.  
“Welche Sprache spreche ich gerade? Niederländisch?”  
“It’s German. Dean’s speaking french.”  
“C’est n’est vrai!”  
“Yes, it is.”  
“Wie weit noch?”  
“Uh, hard to say. I think we’re barely halfway there.”  
The path they had followed wound up at a pretty hefty angle. The Winchesters were getting tired. The tunnel split, both ways going further uphill.  
“I need a break. Hey I can talk!”, Dean said, very proud of himself.  
“Yeah, same.”, Sam agreed. They sat down, catching their breath. Jack studied the walls. They were covered in very old drawings, barely distinguishable from one another or the background.  
“It must have been impressive.”, he said.  
Cas nodded, dwelling in some of his oldest memories of this world. He could count the times he was on earth before he met Dean on one hand. This was by far one of the most impressive sights he’d seen. Still, he hadn’t thought about it in years.  
“It was. And the humans built it all on their own. Come to think of it, cursing this place was probably less about mankind’s hubris and more about Chuck feeling inadequate.”  
“So basically Chuck being Chuck, aka a dick.”, Dean said.  
“Yeah”  
After they had enough time to recover Dean got up, his eyes on Jack.  
“Okay, before we go any further, I would still love to discuss the plan, if we have one. I mean, I get that we’re transferring the Mark, so you go from undefeatable to undefeatable but harder, but I’m still not--”, he was cut off when the mountain started to rumble. He stared at his brother who still had his hand on one of the paintings.  
“What did you do?”, he asked.  
“I just touched the wall, man!”, Sam screamed as the rumbling got louder and louder.  
“We gotta get out of here.”, Jack yelled as dust started to rain from the ceiling.  
“Watch out!”, Cas grabbed Dean and jumped towards one of the pathways. Sam yanked Jack towards the other one. Where they had stood just a second ago the tunnel gave in and collapsed. Tons of stone toppled down, the sound was unbearably loud. After a solid five minutes of rumbling the mountain finally quieted down.  
About a thousand cubic feet of rubble separated Jack and Sam from Dean and Cas.  
“Daijōbu?”, Jack asked in Japanese as Sam struggled to get up.  
Sam repeated the same question in German.  
“Guys?”, Cas yelled, his voice muffled through the rock. “I think moving this stuff will only make the tower collapse faster, I say we split up for now till we reach the top. See you there!”  
Jack and Sam looked at each other. Then they nodded.  
“Hai!”, Jack yelled back.  
Another few hours of walking and not being able to understand each other. This would surely not go wrong in the slightest.

(For reasons such as my lazy ass not wanting to translate everything Dean says into French/spanish, his following lines are written in English (but pretend he’s speaking something else))

“Dean?”, Cas asked as they strode further and further up.  
“Yeah?”  
“I -- uh -- I think I have to tell you something.”  
The hallways they passed through now looked way classier than before. One huge arc after another adorned the walls. The decorations were no longer just paintings, they were carved into the stone. Tiny statues of every creature under the sun. The pillars were sculpted into trees that, even after thousands of years still looked like a petrified forest rather than human craftsmanship. From up ahead an unidentified light source tinted the tunnel in an otherworldly, golden light.  
Even though Dean joked about being dead inside all the time, he couldn’t help but swoon at the sight.  
“What is it?”, he asked.  
Cas didn’t know how to say it. He wanted to be as straightforward with Dean as he had been with Sam but he was scared of his reaction. They continued on until they found the light source. It was an opening in the tower, leading to what once must’ve been a balcony. Part of it was still there.  
Dean stopped in his tracks and looked out into the land. They had been walking the entire night. Over the horizon they saw the sun rising in bright orange colours. The light stretched over the quiet land. It was beautiful.  
Dean looked back at Cas.  
He seemed stunned at the beauty before him. Dean felt his insides turning as he looked at his genuine smile, his stupid trenchcoat and just his... everything.  
“I -- goddammit, I have something to tell you too.”  
Cas looked weary.  
“What is it?”, he asked, locking eyes with the man in front of him.  
“It’s uhh -- why don’t you go first. Maybe we’re talking about the same thing.”, Dean said. Cas was pretty sure that wasn’t the case and he wanted to postpone their inevitable fight for as long as possible.  
“No, I don’t think so. You go first, please.”  
Dean took a huge breath, trying to get rid of all that internalized hatred and fear.  
“Okay.”, shakily he took Cas’s hand. The angel stared at their fingers touching but he didn’t pull away, which Dean guessed was a good sign.  
“I -- this is really awkward -- I…”  
Cas tried to feel nothing. It didn’t work, obviously. He wanted Dean to say it so bad, but he knew he couldn’t let him do it. Because he knew he would probably be sent straight to super hell if he just thought about it for too long.  
“Dean…”, their eyes met again. Their heads were way too close for this to stay platonic. Cas knew he needed to stop it, right now, but he couldn’t.  
“Screw it”, Dean decided and closed the last few inches.  
They kissed.  
Cas felt his chest exploding. He melted. He never felt such happiness before. And that scared the hell out of him, but for this moment, everything was perfect.

Jack felt it. The absence of sound from somewhere above them. He knew what it meant. The Empty. It was coming. Disrupting the harmonies. He picked up the pace.  
“It’s coming. We have to save him!”, Jack cried. Sam didn’t understand his words but he saw his distressed face and interpreted the meaning right.

“I love you.”  
“Y yo a ti, Cas.”  
“You’re talking Spanish again.”

They entered the corridor with the tree-like columns.  
A few hundred feet ahead they saw two figures illuminated by sunlight. Then the light died and they saw nothing.

“What is happening?”  
“Castiel, it’s your time.”  
“I’m sorry Dean. I should’ve told you sooner but I didn’t want to fight again.”  
“Tell me what? Where are we? Where did this darkness come from?”  
“Not darkness, nothingness. Now Castiel. Come.”  
“Cas?”  
“I have to. I made a deal. For Jack. I have to give myself to the Empty the moment I experience true happiness.”  
“What kind of bullshit is that?”  
The Nothingness lessened slightly. Dean was able to distinguish the angel from his surroundings. He was crying. The Empty loomed over them, a non-corporeal shadow.  
“It’s a deal that must be honored. I’m not a creature of your God. You won’t break your oath to me.”  
“Dean.” his hand tightened around Deans. “It’s okay.”  
“No! No, it isn’t! I won’t -- I -- this is not the way this story ends!”  
“You have no influence over that. Castiel! I’ve wasted enough time. We leave.”  
Cas tried to loosen Dean’s grip, but Dean only held on tighter. He looked him in the eyes.  
“I won’t ever let you walk away again.”  
The Empty consumed them, as Dean held his angel unyielding to the shadows desires. Cas grabbed onto him as well.  
They closed their eyes.

Love was a strange thing. So primitive. God couldn’t take credit for the emotion. Most emotions were something his creatures made up themselves. But love was something older. Older than God’s creation, older than light and dark. As old as the Empty. If Chuck and Amara were siblings -- polar opposites -- then Emptiness and Love were too. Love was… everything.  
And Everything and Nothing were at constant war, the way siblings often were. It just so happened that this time Everything won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I only did the Tower of Babel thing so I could justify Dean saying "I love you too" in spanish. I'm sorry, I just had to do it. For the meme.  
> Anyways, I finally finished this bad boy, idk how long it'll take me to write chapter 8 but the epilogue is basically already finished so do with that information what you will.  
> Update: Uh, by which I mean I edited chapter 1 to include another scene between Sam and Dean, bc I've been rewatching the show and I though it would make sense. In case you care feel free to read it (It's at the very beginnig before Eileen even get's back)


	8. Wayward Son

The shadow had disappeared. Dean could feel the sun beams dancing on his skin.  
“Are we dead?”, he mumbled into Cas’s shoulder.  
Cas opened his eyes.  
He saw two figures running towards them.  
Sam and Jack tackled them so hard, they almost fell to the ground.  
“I was so worried”, Jack said in Taiwanese.  
“I thought you were done for.”, Sam said in what Cas thought to be Sesotho, though he wasn’t sure. It had been a long time since he’d been to southern Africa.  
After a few more hours in which the Winchesters almost forgot how to walk and sometimes randomly burst into tapdance, they were almost at the top. Cas suddenly felt an urge to drink a hundred gallons of demon blood, which apparently meant that former addictions were also something that could be transferred. How fun!  
“I think you guys should wait here.”, he told the Winchesters.  
“No need for you two to put yourself in unnecessary danger.”  
Dean -- surprisingly enough -- agreed. He reluctantly let go of Cas’s hand.  
When the angel and the nephilim were out of sight, Sam boxed his brother in the arm, lovingly.  
They couldn’t actually have their B.M. scene because they had no idea what they were even saying, but seeing his brother be so happy for him filled a little bit of that dark hole in Dean’s chest.  
“We’re here.”, Cas stated the obvious. The top of the tower was a gigantic hall, with even bigger windows whose stained glass had long, long been lost to time and the harsh winds up this high. There wasn’t a roof either, but that seemed to stem from the workers abandoning the sight, rather than corrosion.  
It was midday. The sun stood at its zenith, directly above them.  
In the middle of the hall was a dais.  
“I guess that’s it.”, Jack decided.  
“So do we just stand on the podium and… wait?”, he asked.  
Cas shrugged. “Unless you have a better idea”  
Jack shook his head so they did just that.  
The curse took effect immediately. Cas felt his ears drop as a power he couldn’t quite grasp plunged into his arm and tore away the Mark. The supposed ink frizzled off his forearm drawing pitchblack, rootlike streaks out of Cas’s body. He felt its effects wearing off ever so slightly.  
Jack held up his bare arm, ready to receive the Mark of Cain. The black liquidy substance came gliding through the air and sank into his skin. He winced a little, while trying desperately not to heal himself on reflex.  
Then it was over. The humming in the air stopped. It was silent, at least for Cas. Jack could hear the faint undertones of the Mark intertwining with his own. It had worked. A surge of divine energy rushed through him and he felt his creativity already stirring.  
When he closed his eyes and listened to the dissonance coming from this tower, the abrupt ending of a piece, God had never wanted to finish he thought about how it could’ve continued. How the melodies and accompaniment were supposed to work with one another, not against each other like they did now.  
He opened his eyes. Cas stared at him in awe. The room was darker than before. The ceiling… the hall had a ceiling. The sun’s light entered through the repaired light blue, green and pink stained glass.  
The dais they still stood on was covered in flowers from all over the world.  
“What… how?”, Cas wasn’t sure what to ask.  
Jack smiled. “I corrected an error my grandfather committed. The curse is broken now”  
“Yeah, I noticed. You’re speaking english again”  
As they walked back to the Winchesters, Cas realized that it wasn’t just that one room. Jack had dusted up the entire Tower of Babel. The thousands of years worth of sand that had transformed it into a mountain had vanished. The carvings in the walls looked as new as they did when the stonemasons had just chiseled them in.  
The floors were devoid of rubble. It looked exactly the way he remembered it.  
Dean and Sam felt the divine energy approaching them. Jack’s eyes were still gleaming golden.  
“So I guess it worked this time?”, Sam said. His son smiled. They were back at the bunker. In an instant. Kevin had done what was closest to sleeping for a ghost. He got startled when the four suddenly appeared out of nowhere again, without any warning.  
“Stop randomly changing people’s location, my dead heart can’t take it.”, he sighed. He had felt the energy surges coming from the other side of the globe so he already knew that what the plan had been a success, much to his surprise. He didn’t expect things to go right.  
“Sorry”, Jack apologized.  
“Imma get a beer.”, Dean mumbled. Things turned out well, but he just confessed his love to his crush/husband of ten years, thus came out to his brother, survived the Empty trying to kill his angel and had his son turn into basically God, he needed a minute.  
The others sat down.  
“So how’d it go?” Kevin asked.  
“Just wait for the beer, dammit!”, they heard Dean yelling from the kitchen.  
Sam recounted their journey.  
Then they sat there. Waiting. Not sure for what until Kevin asked:  
“Right, so what now?”  
They all looked at Jack. He supposedly had a plan. And if he was that determined to not kill Billie then all their plans -- which all somehow involved stealing her scythe and slicing her when she wasn’t looking -- weren’t exactly what they were looking for.  
Dean tried anyway: “So first, we have to find her, right?”  
“I don’t know, I think she’ll probably just come to us.”, Jack replied.  
“Why would she do that?”, Cas asked. “She’s probably scared of you and she hates us.”  
Jack laughed softly. “Because I’m gonna do this.”  
He leaned over the table towards Kevin and booped his nose.  
Kevin’s eyes narrowed. “I… What was that?”  
“Want a zip?”, Jack asked and handed him his beer.  
Kevin, still suspicious, took his bottle and chucked down what was still in the flask. Then he spat it out and started coughing.  
“Oh no… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to!”, Jack petted his back apologetically.  
“Is he...?”, Dean asked.  
“Yes.”  
“Shit, you’re that powerful?”  
“Yes. Apparently so.”  
“Am I what? Alive? Why did you let my first action after resurrecting me be drinking this beer?”, Kevin asked tears streaming down his face, after he finally got the drops of liquor out of his lungs “It’s disgusting.”  
“Don’t insult the beer.”, Dean said.  
“Do you want something else to drink?”, Sam asked.  
Kevin shook his head. “I want… I think I want to pee.”  
He got up to go to the bathroom.  
“God, it’s been so long since I had to do mundane stuff like peeing. Why am I actually excited pee? Is that weird?”  
Cas shook his head. “Being human is way more exciting than people give it credit for. It’s exhausting, but it’s exciting.”

“It’s been four days”, Dean started, gesturing angrily at the ceiling.  
“Why hasn’t Billie knocked down our door yet and blasted us all to mega hell?”, he asked Cas.  
“I don’t know, but if Jack says she’ll come she’ll come.”  
Dean could feel the angel’s jaw move on his chest while he was talking. They were cuddling in bed. Yes, Cas still didn’t need to sleep, but Dean wasn’t about to let that stop him from being the big spoon whenever he fell asleep. That was a lie, he was always the little one.  
It had been four days since the tower. Still, this felt as natural as if they’d lived like this for forty years instead of four days.  
“Guess you’re right. I just wish it was finally over you know? If it’s ever over.”  
Cas shifted, so he could see Dean’s face.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I… I don’t know. Just, we’ve been at this point so many times. Like, the end, but then there’s always something that screws it up. One of us dies or -- I don’t know -- one of us unleashes some terrible monster or whatever.”  
“You’re worried that this isn’t the finale.”, Cas said. It was a statement, not a guess.  
Dean averted his eyes. He was proud of himself for managing to share his thoughts and feelings with Cas, but he was still struggling hard.  
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”  
It took Cas a few seconds to find Dean’s hand under the blanket. He pulled at the other’s arm so he could cup his hand with both of his’.  
“No. I have faith in Jack.”  
“I do to”, Dean parried.  
“I know. But your weird little heart is also constantly drowning in uncontrollable fear.”  
Dean gulped. He hated that Cas knew him so well. Not that it was nearly as hard to read Dean’s feelings as Dean thought it was -- he was kind of like an open book in that regard -- but Cas -- and sometimes his brother -- were the only ones who ever actually confronted him with them directly.  
“We’ll get our happy ending and then you’ll finally open up that bar you always dreamed about.”  
Dean’s brain trailed off. He thought about Lee. He had had the perfect life. A husband, a bar, a hot waitress/bff and it had still gone wrong. He and Lisa had been living that life for a year and it had ended with her getting possessed and almost killed and Ben traumatized.  
“I… I think I’m worried about that the most. That we get our happy ending. Our freedom, our… whatever. That everything’s perfect and I let my guard down and then if something happens then we won’t be prepared. I’m just worried that I’ll never be able to let it go.”  
Cas traced the lines in Dean’s hand. He knew that there wasn’t much he could say to make Dean feel better. Not permanently. Still.  
“You will”, he said, confident he was right.

Sam spent the past days buried in the archives, digging through all the stuff they had, cataloging most of it -- if he could even identify it -- and throwing out what they had en masse.  
“Why do we have so many incantation bowls?”, he mumbled to himself as he dumped the sixth broken one he found in the trash.  
“Hey, Sam?”, Jack stood at the door.  
Sam’s head shot up and he got out his gun which was complicated by the fact he was sitting cross legged on the floor.  
“Yeah? Is she here?”  
“No… no, not yet.”, Jack reassured him.  
“Oh, good.”, he put the gun away.  
Jack sat down next to him.  
“What did you find this time?”  
“Uhh -- a key that supposedly opens a door to Death’s library, which would’ve been very useful when we needed Chuck’s book, two lamps that might’ve got genies trapped inside them, a shitton of spell bowls and incantation bowls, most of which are broken and a book that is allegedly a copy of the first writing by humans, whatever that means. I can’t read it.”  
He handed the book to Jack to take a look at it.  
“Why did the chicken cross the river?”, he read out loud.  
“To get to the other side?”  
Jack nodded.  
“They’re all jokes.”, he explained.  
“The oldest writing in the world is a joke book?”  
Jack shrugged. He liked the idea.  
“Do you have any idea when she’ll get here?”, Sam asked when Jack had put away the book.  
“I know she’ll come. But I guess she’s trying to be smart about it because she’s worried we’ll kill her... which is fair. I mean Cas already did that once.”  
“What are we going to do by the way? You said you’d deal with her but are you sure you don’t need our help for anything?”  
Jack nodded. “I’ve got it covered.”  
“If you say so.”  
“Do you have any long term plans for after?”, Jack asked suddenly. Sam felt uncomfortable even thinking past Billie. He had no idea what he wanted to do. Eileen was still dead and he wasn’t sure if Jack would be able to bring her back. So there was only one thing he could do.  
“Saving people, hunting things, I guess.”, he quoted.  
“I’m not sure hunting will be necessary in the future.”  
Sam looked at the kid.  
“There’ll always be monsters. What are you planning to do with them? Most of them survive on human flesh... or blood or something.”  
Jack shrugged. “Ease their hunger?”  
Sam shuckled. He really wished it would be that easy. Cas believed Jack could bring the future. Sam wanted to believe it so bad, but he wasn’t sure.  
“Okay then, if I succeed -- which I will -- what are your plans? Besides hunting?”  
Sam leaned back.  
“I was in law school. Maybe I’d go back and do that?”, he pondered but wasn’t really feeling it.  
“Or I take the extra free time to finish this.”, he pointed at the different stacks of stuff around them.  
“I don’t know. I don’t ever really think about it ending.”  
“Really?”, Jack asked.  
“Didn’t want to get my hopes up, you know?”

“Let’s all go out.”, Jack suggested. It was the seventh day. Still no sign of Death. Kevin looked up from the book he was reading. He hadn’t left yet. There was still a chance that he would promptly be rekilled, the moment he left Jack’s side.  
“Why?”, he asked.  
“You all seem to go crazy being cooped up in this place.”  
Cas moved his pawn two squares then critically looked at the chess board.  
“You're only saying that because you’re losing.”  
Jack shifted in his chair.  
“Am not.”  
“It’s okay, I was a heavenly war general, strategy was my job.”  
Jack pulled a snout, but it was obvious he wasn’t actually mad. He moved his queen across the field into what was obviously a trap. Cas played for checkmate in three more moves.  
“Ah, dang it.”  
Kevin snorted. “You know, there’s something strangely reassuring about the strongest deity in the known universe still being beatable at chess.”  
He closed the book. “Aight, I’m in. Let’s go outside.”

All six of them went to town. They took a stroll in the park and went for pizza afterwards.  
“This is amazing. How come we’ve never been here before?”, Dean said after he had his first bite.  
“How often do we come here for more than a beer run?”, Sam asked.  
Dean couldn’t argue with that.

“Let’s go see a movie.”, Kevin said. “I haven’t been to the cinema in years. I miss it.”  
“You didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d go to the movies”, Sam recalled.  
“I wasn’t.”, Kevin admitted. “I think I was like fourteen or something, when I’ve last been there.”  
“Movies sound good. All in favour?”, Dean asked and everyone nodded except for Jack. He was staring into the distance. It was the middle of the day, the sun wouldn’t go down for hours yet somehow the town suddenly seemed darker and the wind sharper, bringing in a cold breeze.  
Cas noticed them too and stopped dead in his tracks.  
“Reapers.”  
“What?”, Dean asked but he already knew what was going on, even though he couldn’t see them. “How many?”  
“Hundreds. It’s like back in Carthage.”  
“You mean the day Ellen and Jo…?”  
“Yeah”, Cas confirmed.  
“Why are there so many of them? ”, Kevin asked. He was scared out of his mind. If there was something he wasn’t going to do it was becoming a ghost again any time soon.  
Jack was the only one not on edge.  
“They’re watching us. But they’re not moving. Yet.”  
“Well, well”, a menacing voice said. The Reaper strode towards them, her scythe grabbed tight, her ring pressed sharply against its shaft. Billie didn’t look angry, but Jack knew she was furious.  
“If it isn’t my least favourite living dead.”  
No one said anything so Death continued.  
“You know, I was really going to let you guys live if you’d have kept your heads down. I had no interest in any of you.  
“But no! You don’t know when to stop! You never do.”  
She pointed her weapon at the group.  
“Stand down.”, she warned them.  
Dean scoffed. “What, your little villain speech is supposed to intimidate us? We have freakin’ God 2.0 on our side! You should be scared of us!”  
The Winchesters and Cas drew their angel blades. They wouldn’t do much good against Billie herself but the reapers wouldn’t like them.  
“Fine.”, she glanced at her army. They attacked. Hundreds of reapers fell over them and Dean and Sam couldn’t see any of them. Cas had to bend over backwards to protect all of them at once.  
“Duck!”, Kevin yelled at Dean. He did as he was told and felt a blade slicing the air where his throat had been just a moment ago.  
“You can see them?”, he yelled, as Cas deflected something that would’ve otherwise impaled his boyfriend.  
Kevin nodded. All his time in the veil must’ve given him the ability.  
“Okay, be our eyes!”, Sam asked.  
“Enough”, Jack decided. He lifted his hand gently, his eyes glowed in bright, white and golden light.  
Everyone stopped, frozen in time. One reaper was only inches away from cutting into Cas’s chest. Sam’s blade was already drawing blood or whatever it was reapers bled.  
The only one not affected were him and Death.  
“Let’s go for a walk.”, he said and gestured for her to follow him.  
“Who do you think you are? You’re a child. I am billions of years old, you can’t comand me!”  
Jack looked delighted. “I know, but I wanted to show you something. Now, are you coming or what?”  
Billie stared at him, then at the surrounded mortals, then back at Jack. Her scythe was still readied for combat.  
She took a deep breath and lowered the weapon. 

“Where are we?”  
“Shhh, listen.”  
Jack wasn’t sure whether Death would hear it. She was too caught up in the lies and false promises God had made. But he couldn’t think of a better place to show her than the Between.  
Jack fell to the not technically existent floor. He could already hear how the cacophonies grew smaller. They were still over the place. The injustices, cruelty and sadness in every creature’s heart, whether they had a heart or not. The feeling that they had been abandoned lingered in all their souls -- deep, deep down.  
“Why does it sound so…”, Billie stared into the void, trying to reach for a fitting word.  
“...off?”  
“Yeah. Sometimes it just stops for no reason. Other times it just doesn’t fit all together. What is this?”  
“That’s creation. The entire creation. ”  
“It sounds terrible.”, Billie found.  
Jack laughed and leaned back. “So why are you holding onto it?”  
She side-eyed him. “What do you mean? This isn’t what I was talking about.”  
“Isn’t it? Then why does it still sound like this? You’ve been in charge for what? A month or two of your beloved system in place? All the doors shut. Shouldn’t it sound better now?”, Jack asked.  
“It only sounds like that because you’re messing with it. You and the Winchesters and everyone who doesn’t like sticking to the rules and thinks they’re important enough to break them.”  
He sighed. “This is your order Billie. Who do you think came up with this?” He gestured vaguely at the everything around them “My grandfather. And who made up the rules you're trying to enforce? The very same. What order are you even trying to maintain? Because as far as I can see and hear, there isn’t one. Not really. It’s all muddled up and very vague.”  
The reaper shrugged. “Destiny.”  
“Destiny is a terrible script, written by an egocentric douchebag for his own amusement. It doesn’t actually mean anything.”  
“That statement would make a few sisters I know, very angry.”  
Billie started moving around somewhat. Jack felt that his questions made her uncomfortable. Mainly, because she knew her arguments were weak.  
“It’s okay. It takes everyone a while.”, he said.  
“I don’t need a while!”, she snapped. “I -- no! This is ridiculous! What does a three year old know about the universe? I’ve existed since the dawn of time! This -- this is how it’s supposed to be! Maybe -- Jack -- maybe you’ve got it all wrong and the world’s just ugly. Have you ever thought about that?”  
Jack stayed calm and got up. He gently pulled a sound with his right hand.  
“Listen to this.”, he said.  
It sounded beautiful.  
“That’s a vampire couple in denmark. They got married today. Or this.”, he pulled another sound.  
“She came out to her friends today and they were super supportive and immediately started using her new name and pronouns.”  
“That’s a cliff in New Zealand. And this one the sound of otters. See, all of these, they sound beautiful. The world isn’t ugly. It's just the parts, they don’t.. fit. Because God had no clue how to use the things he created to make something beautiful. And because of that there’s fights and bigotry and tragedy and murder and loneliness. I -- I know I can fix it.”  
She looked at him.  
Death didn’t cry.  
She would never, it didn’t fit her but on that day in that hour she might have come closer than she ever did before. And ever did again. That moment, when all her illusions shattered. When she looked at this young, naive boy who thought he could make everything better with the goddamn power of love… and she believed him.

The reapers were gone. All of a sudden.  
“What just happened?.”, Dean asked, utterly confused.  
But Jack smiled and it felt so genuine, that Dean couldn’t help but feel encouraged.  
“I convinced her.”  
“What? How?”  
“The old order, gods writing, it was messy and unfair and full of misery and disharmonies. I just showed her that. I think deep down she knew. Everyone knows. I’m fixing it. Right now. I’m making sure everyone gets a happy ending! You’ll see for yourself one day.”  
“So… are you the God now?”, Sam asked. It sounded dumb, but he had to know.  
“I guess I’m his replacement for the time being. He’ll come back eventually, I think. But don’t call me that, please. I’m Jack. Jack Kline, son of Kelly Kline and you guys.”, he looked at each of his dads. Sam was on the edge of tears. Why did this feel like a goodbye? Dean was terrible at hiding the pride he felt and Cas just looked genuinely happy.  
“I have to go now, got much to do.”  
He smiled one last time then turned around and walked into the sunset. Dean could see his form slowly dissolving in the light, becoming one with his surroundings.  
“Wait!”, Sam called “What if we ever wanna meet you? You know, grab a beer or something?”  
Jack turned around his features burning in a bright, otherworldly glow.  
“I’m everywhere Sam. I'm in every raindrop that falls from the sky, in every speck of dust in the wind. Just call me, and I’ll be there, I promise.”  
And with that, Jack vanished. No, he didn’t. It was more than that. He became one with everything, Dean could feel it. He could feel the warmth in which the world suddenly started glowing. It felt like the best hug he ever had.  
Even the bystanders, who were completely oblivious to what had happened right under their nose, felt it. The world had started to glow with hope and empathy, with joy and…well... love. It was pure love that he felt and for the first time in a long time all the anger Dean had felt ever since he found out about god’s writing -- screw that -- ever since he could remember, it had disappeared altogether, all of it.  
He felt the huge weight of three apocalypses, of constantly having to watch their backs and never being able to let his guard down lifted off his shoulders.  
He was happy. Truly happy for the first time in forever.  
He reached for Cas’s hand. The angel was full on crying. He thought of Kelly. If she could see her son now. Everything they both had hoped for, the future, it was here.  
And no one would ever take it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. I finally finished it. I don't know, it's not even that long but it was still hard.  
> I have no clue where the concept of the Between came from. It's just something my brain made up and I think of as canon now and then I watch the show and remember "Huh, that's not a thing."  
> Well, I hope you like the way it ended, sort of. The epilogue will be up in... the next three days? It's basically finished but I might add some extra scenes just to wrap things up nicer.  
> Aight, stay save everyone!


	9. Epilogue

When Jack disappeared, Sam thought he heard a noise coming from behind and turned around, thinking maybe it was a leftover reaper or whatever. He stopped in the middle of the motion, when he saw her standing there.  
Eileen smiled at him.  
“Hey Sam.”, she whispered. They fell into each other's arms. Sam cried. He had missed her so, so much. Eileen started crying too.  
She loosened their hug so she could see his eyes.  
“I love you.”, he said it without even thinking about it. Eileen kissed him.  
“I love you too, babe”.

“So you want my help?”, Michael asked, confused.  
“Yeah well, if you want to. I’m offering you three a position. Up to you, whether you want to take it or not.”  
“To do what exactly?”, Rowena asked.  
She, Michael/Adam and Jack sat around a table in a garden. The garden.  
Michael hadn’t been here in thousands of years but it was still as pure and perfect as he remembered it.  
“I… I want to fix the afterlife. We all agree that the way things are now is kinda dumb, right? Mortals live for -- what? -- eighty years and then we either reward or torture them forever?  
“And the reward is just a slideshow of your best memories meanwhile the torture is well… actual infinite torture?”  
“You make me and my demons sound like the bad guys.”  
“And the angels like incompetend dicks”  
Jack nodded. “Exactly. Because that is the way God wrote it. I have a plan and I want you to help me.”  
Why not?, Adam asked.  
Let’s at least hear him out.  
You said no more apocalypses, Michael reminded him.  
This isn‘t an apocalypse. This is the future.

Bobby saw a light. Next thing he knew, he hit a hard surface. He felt like he had been sleeping for months. Next to him a few of the other hunters woke up, equally disoriented.  
“Hello.”  
Charlie squinted her eyes. “Jack? Aren’t you dead? Where are we?”  
Jack looked around. They stood in the middle of the woods.  
“This is your world. You’re back home.”  
They studied their surroundings. Charlie recognized the mountains and even the trail they had woken up on.  
“Uh, yeah. God destroyed it and then Billie -- Death, I mean -- she sent you back here. You were basically floating in limbo for some time, but it’s okay because it’s back now.”  
“What about the Winchesters?”, Bobby asked.  
“They’re in their own world. I set up a rift a mile that way.”, he pointed south, along the trail.  
“It will be open permanently. You can go back and forth whenever you like. I have to go now. If you guys need anything, call me.”

Mary’s happiest memories were interrupted by an angel. She didn’t know him. He barged through the door, uninvited.  
“What the hell?”, she asked.  
“There’s been a shift in management in heaven.”, he said, cutting right to the chase. “...or I guess the universe.”  
“What does that even mean?”  
“Well, you get to go somewhere else. Don’t worry…”, he said, when he saw her face drop.  
“It’s not hell, I promise.”  
So she let him guide her. They arrived at a rose arch.  
The grass was soft and green, the trees looked older than the universe itself.  
“Mary!”, a voice yelled her name.  
She turned around and saw none other than Kelly Kline.  
“Kelly? What is happening here? Where are we?”  
She saw her eyes sparkling with joy.  
“It’s my son. He is changing the future!”  
“Wait, my nephew did all this?”, Gabriel had appeared out of nowhere.  
“Yes!”  
“Gabriel? But… sorry… I‘m glad to see you but aren‘t you supposed to be in the Empty?”  
The archangel shrugged. “Not anymore, apparently.”  
“Where exactly are we?”, Mary asked.  
“Paradise, I think”, another one entered the conversation. Was that...? Mary only knew her from her sons’ photos.  
“You’re... Ellen Harvelle, right?”  
She smirked. “Yeah. You’re the Winchesters' mother, right? Mary Winchester? This is my daughter Jo”  
The young woman next to her nodded at Marry.  
“How are the boys?”, Jo asked.  
“Well, not worse, I think. I don’t know, it’s been a confusing few years.”  
“Always are, when you're with the Winchesters.”, Ellen confirmed.  
“Where’s John? Is he here too?”, Mary asked.  
Ellen’s expression slipped a little.  
“You know, overall John might’ve had his heart in the right place, but he hasn’t been a very good father most of the time. He’ll get here eventually though. Everyone does.”

“Ahh, yes!”, Dean said with an excited glow in his eyes..  
“We’ll take it”, he told the real estate agent.  
“We haven’t even seen the inside”, Cas mumbled into his ear, but Dean wouldn’t let himself be talked out of this one.  
The house stood in the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a few small fields. The sign over the entrance read Whirly Dirly in neon lights that hadn’t worked in years and when they went to explore the inside, Cas grew at least 95% sure that this used to be a strip club.  
“Are you sure?”, he asked his boyfriend.  
“Oh I’m sure. Look at the bar, it’s already perfect, we just have to polish it and over there, we can build a stage there. Life music on Thursdays, karaoke the rest of the week. And that”, he pointed to the dustiest corner of them all: “That’ll be the lounge. We’ll only let the pretty people go there”  
Cas snorted.  
“Alright, fine.”, he gave in.  
They told the realtor and she went off to get the contracts ready.  
“What will we call it?”, Cas asked “Whirly Dirly’s off the table.”  
Dean pulled out a very old picture and used the rustiest pin Cas had ever seen to hang it up on an old bulletin board next to the counter.  
Bobby, Ellen and Jo and the younger versions of themselves mustered the new place with their grim, black and white faces.  
“I was thinking we’d call it the Roadhouse.”

“This is stupid”, Sam laughed.  
“Oh don’t be daft.”, Rowena chided. She wore a fiery red dress, overflowing with shiny jewels and what might have been actual fire, though Sam was too scared to touch it and find out.  
“Are you ready?”, she asked.  
Sam nervously fumbled with his tie one last time then he nodded. Since they’d lost all pretenses regarding God and Christianity and just believe in general, he and Eileen weren’t sure how they wanted to get married. They thought about just going to Vegas and do it there -- but that reminded Sam to much of his involuntary marriage to Becky -- or to simply schedule an appointment at the registry office but alas, they decided to just throw a big, dumb, overly expensive party anyway, if just to see all their friends again.  
And since Eileen’s dad had long been dead and hadn't conveniently been resurrected, they decided to swap places because Rowena had volunteered to walk Sam down the aisle.  
Eileen was waiting for him, wearing an elegant white dress that fit her perfectly. She grinned wide when she saw him coming.  
Dean, Cas and Garth, who were his best men, had a hushed conversation and started giggling like school children.  
The crowd largely consisted of former hunter’s, all friends of Sam and/or Eileen, plus the regulars like Jody, Donna and the girls, alternate Charlie and Bobby, Jack, of course, and so on.  
They stood in front of the priest who was clearly drunk out of his mind, not like it mattered.  
“Are you, Eileen Leahy, willing to -- higs -- take this man as your lawfully wedded wife?”  
Sam squinted. “You mean…”  
“I mean what I mean!”, the priest yelled and the best men started chuckling again, this time joined by the Queen of Hell herself.  
Eileen laughed and signed “I do”, while mouthing the words.  
“And will you, Samwell Winchester, take this woman as your lawfully wedded hus - wife! -- as your wife?”  
“I do”, they kissed and the crowd cheered.

Dean almost fell over the woman squatting in the cheese aisle, trying to decide whether she wanted gouda or emmental. He caught himself at the last minute.  
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I… do I know you?”, she asked when she looked up to apologize.  
Dean was too struck to speak. He started stammering about how it was okay and that they didn’t know each other but most of his word’s died on the way out.  
Lisa Braeden raised an eyebrow. It must’ve been well over twelve years since they had been together. But of course, she wouldn’t remember any of that.  
“Mom, you coming?”, Lisa turned around. The boy asking wasn’t even a boy anymore. Ben was in his early twenties and Dean nearly lost his mind when trying to compare him to the eleven year old he had known.  
“Who’re you talking to? Wait, I recognize you from somewhere.”  
“I do too! But I don’t why.”  
“You must have me confused with someone else. Maybe I have a twin brother I know nothing ab--”  
“You’re the guy from the car accident!”, Lisa remembered while pointing a pack of cheddar cheese at him accusingly.  
“Thirteen years ago we were in a car accident. That was you, right? The guy who smashed into us?!”  
Ben’s eyes widened when he remembered. Dean felt very awkward.  
“Uh-- yes. That’s right! Again, I’m so sorry, Lisa, right? And Ben? I hope you’re doing well?”  
Lisa smiled. “Well, Ben’s a junior in college, isn’t that right? Top of his year!”  
“It’s a community college, mom”, Ben said embarrassed.  
“It’s still impressive.”, Lisa rebutted.  
“It is. What are you majoring in?”, Dean asked.  
“Math.”  
“Oh, nice.”, Dean said, though he hadn’t tried to solve an equation since he’d been fourteen.  
Ben nodded. He wasn’t sure why, but he liked this man, even though he’d almost got his mom killed in the accident.  
“Dean, did you get the cheese?”, Cas asked from around the corner.  
“The what?”  
He stepped into the aisle and recognized the others immediately.  
“Oh, hi.”  
Lisa tilted her head when she mustered the angel. Something about him felt familiar too.  
“Uh -- yeah so this is Cas.”  
“Your boyfriend?”  
“Husband, actually.”, Dean corrected.  
“Oh, congrats!”  
Cas rolled his eyes, smiling. “We’re not actually married, he just likes that title more.”  
“Dude we’re old, we have a kid. I’m not gonna walk around in my forties calling you my boyfriend. It sounds silly.”  
“You have a child?”, Lisa asked.  
“Yeah, he’s at his uncle’s right now.”

“To the hospital, now”, Eileen commanded. Her contractions were less than four minutes apart.  
“On it. Where are the keys?”, Sam asked in a rush. She tossed them.  
“Aight, can you walk?”  
“I’ll manage, let’s go!”  
Sam drove like a mad man. They made it in time.

“You want me to be the godfather?”, Garth asked over the phone, sounding surprised.  
“Not Dean and Cas?”  
Sam thought about how overwhelmed they were with just one kid. Two more were definitely going to kill them and they had survived the freaking Empty.  
Jack appeared next to him out of thin air.  
“Shouldn’t I be their godfather? I mean, I’m God.”  
“Oh and I could be their godaunt, if that’s a thing”, Amara said. She materialized right next to Jack. The two of them had made it a habit of jumping into conversation randomly. It happened so often, he didn’t even flinch like he did the first few hundred times.  
Sam was always glad to see his son, just not when he was trying to be profound with a friend.  
“Guys, please. I thought this would be a touching moment with Garth, you ruined it for a joke.”  
“Huh, worth it, I’d say.”, Amara said.  
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”, Jack pleaded. Sam rolled his eyes, but he was grinning while he did it.  
“Sam, who’s that?”, Garth asked through the phone.  
“Just Jack and Amara. No, I want you to be the godfather. You’re great with kids, man. And you’d definitely teach them better manners than these two.”

Rowena took a break from examining souls that weren’t good enough for paradise yet. She loved the job, but it was exhausting.  
With a wave of her hand she got herself a glass of Martini. A movement caught her eye. Was that… a rat? She was sure, she had banned all rats from hell. That was pretty much the first change she had made to the interior design.  
“Wait, is that you Fergus?”  
The rat squeaked, confirming her suspicion. A spell later, Crowley sat in front of her looking like his old vessel again.  
“Thank you, mother.”  
“I can’t believe that you came to me. As a rat. It’s been nine years.”  
Crowley didn’t see what was wrong with that. “Posing as a rodent worked once when I faked my death to fool Lucifer. Worked again with Death herself. And that blast God hit me with did almost kill me. So I needed a few years to recover. Don’t pretend like time ever meant anything to you. ”  
“Right.”, she looked him up and down. “So -- now that you’re restored to full health again -- have you come to reclaim your throne then?”  
Crowley shook his head. “Oh no. Taking over once, well that’s just common sense. Taking over a second time is arbitrary, can’t just let the guy who screwed you over get away with it, right? But taking over a third time? Well, that’s just not classy. Besides, ruling hell sounds fun, until you realize how much work is involved.”  
They were both silent. Rowena regarded her son. She hated him so much, but she loved him more.  
“Well, I just wanted a little spell magic from you to turn me back. I’ll be going now.”  
“Fergus? I… I want to tell you I’m sorry. I really screwed up with you, didn‘t I? I never gave you a chance at a normal life and I’m sorry for every hardship you had to endure because of me.”  
Crowley was already halfway across the room.  
“Not everything that happened to me is your fault, you know? I made my own choices… And I forgive you.”, he said, the last words almost inaudible.  
Rowena smiled. She hadn‘t expected to be forgiven. A weight, much heavier than she had ever even noticed, was lifted from her heart.  
“What do you plan on doing now?”, she asked.  
Crowley turned around. “I don’t know. I mean I’m not allowed to tempt the mortals into selling me their souls anymore which means my old job is gone. I guess, I’ll just chill for a while.”  
“Do you want to come to the family reunion on Friday?”, she asked.  
He raised his eyebrows. “The what?”

„Dad! Come on, we‘re gonna be late! Pa‘s already waiting in the car!”  
„I’ll be down in a minute!”  
Cas looked at himself in the mirror. Should he actually leave like this? He was dressed as he‘d been dressed back when they still hunted monsters -- trench coat and a suit.  
He sighed. It was go time.  
His son, a ten year old, curly haired, dark skinned boy named Malcolm was waiting for him at the base of the stairs.  
„You took forever!”  
„Yeah, yeah. Come on”, Cas picked him up and put him on his shoulders. Malcolm giggled uncontrollably.  
“Watch out for the doorframe!”, he said as they both ducked.  
Dean was already sitting in the Impala, blasting his music, making sure all their neighbours would be annoyed by them.  
The angel let his son down and they got into their seats.  
Cas kissed Dean on the cheek. Malcolm made gagging sounds and his dads started laughing.  
„Sorry it took so long.”  
„You‘re wearing the old fit.”, Dean commented.  
„Yeah, thought it would be fitting.”  
Dean grunted at the pun, half laughing but definitely crying.  
“I’m a dad. It’s expected of me to make dumb puns, isn’t it?”, Cas asked.  
“I just need a minute to reset my brain.”, Dean explained, then he asked:  
„Everyone buckled in?”  
Malcolm nodded.

Sam and Eileen lived less than five minutes away from the others. The Impala drove through their street while Sam was in the process of putting the seat belt on his second daughter.  
The seven year old twins kept giggling about jokes he didn‘t understand.  
Dean stopped the car.  
„How come you‘re running late too?”, he asked.  
Sam turned around. He waved at Malcolm and Cas.  
„Lilly had band practice and we still had to eat afterwards. And then Garth called to tell me they wouldn‘t make it because the kids are sick. And now, here we are.”  
Dean was disappointed. He hadn‘t seen Garth in at least a month.  
„Don‘t worry, I invited them over as soon as they‘re doing better. You’re invited too.”  
Eileen came from  
their house, locked the front door, packed with munchables for later. She loaded it all into Sam‘s arms so she could hug her brother in law.  
Then they drove off.

The bunker was already packed with people when they got there.  
Charlie greeted them.  
“You’re an hour early.”, Dean chided her.  
She turned around to Bobby. “See, I told you!”.  
Bobby shrugged.  
“We’re an hour ahead back home. How am I supposed to know which 2pm you guys are talking about?”  
Shortly afterwards, Rowena showed up. Gwen, Sam and Eileen’s other twin, was especially excited to see her. She was into that whole occult stuff and Rowena was more than happy to teach her everything she knew, much to Sam’s dread.  
“Show me the one you used to kill the reapers!”, she asked while impatiently jumping up and down.  
Rowena ruffled her hair “Oh dear, how do you even know about that one?”  
Eileen sighed. “She got a hold of your diary.”  
The witch smirked. “Well, how about I show you one that lights up other people’s underpants instead?” Gwen started giggling.  
“I’ll get Jack”, Cas announced.  
“Already here.”, the boy said, appearing at the door.  
“JACK”, Malcolm yelled. He was so hyped to see his older brother.  
“Can we go to Six Flags?”, he asked. “They opened up a new roller coaster, I wanna go so bad!”  
The nephilim hugged the boy, then his dads and Eileen and everyone else.  
“We’ll go later, I promise.”  
Malcolm squealed with anticipation and ran off with his cousins to explore the bunker.  
Adam and Michael, Donatello -- soul restored and healthy -- and Crowley --body restored and healthy -- dropped by next.  
Dean and Cas exchanged a look. On a weird, drunken night, they had decided to call Malcolm Malcolm Crowley Winchester. They just thought it would be funny, like how Harry Potter called his son Albus Severus. They never actually thought they would see Crowley again.  
Kaia and Claire made the most noise when they showed up.  
“We’re getting married!”, Claire screamed and Kaia supported her girlfriend by wooing loudly and spinning a football rattle.  
Alex, coming in behind them rolled her eyes. Patience nudged her in the side. “Be happy for you sister.”  
Alex smiled. “I am. Just... the rattle… it’s too much.”  
Patience had brought her significant other too, a guy called Ian.  
He stood around awkwardly as she introduced him to everyone else. Jody and Donna laughed secretly at how nervous the guy was.  
But he was a nice kid and they approved of him.  
The day was long. Kevin and his Mom came by.  
“How’s the campaign going?”, Eileen asked him.  
After all the shenanigans involving Death and Kevin’s resurrection, he had finally gone back to finish his time at college and get a degree. Now he was aiming to become the first asian-amercan president.  
“I saw your ads. They’re awesome. Very inspiring.”, Sam noted.  
Kevin smiled. “IT’s honestly going way better than I expected and that scares the living crap out of me, but we’ll see. At least I get a few more tries, if I mess up this one. All the other candidates are more than twice as old as me. This is probably their last chance.”  
His mom hit him gently on the back of his head.  
“Don’t be like that.”, she scolded.  
But the others were laughing.  
To Dean’s surprise even Benny showed up. Since Jack had meddled with the different afterlives, the lines between life and death had gotten somewhat blurry. Most people who had died stayed dead and got to either learn how to be better people or directly qualified for paradise, but some slipped back into the land of the living. Not like it mattered. Jack didn’t mind and Death wasn’t what she used to be.  
The last one was Amara.  
“Auntie!”, Lilly screamed. She flung herself at the woman.  
“Hey, Sweetie!”, she screamed back.  
“I do not approve of that nickname. Only Jack gets to call me that.”, she whispered to Dean.  
“She’s Sam’s kid. Tell him that. Although I don’t think she’s gonna listen to him.”  
“Hey, you wanted to be their godaunt!”, Sam defended his daughter.  
“That was a joke!”, she replied as if that had been obvious but Sam just shrugged, smiling:  
“Well now it’s too late.”

They spend the entire day and most of the night eating, laughing, exchanging stories and talking about the good old days that had actually been awful. Jack and Malcolm went to Six Flags. And then to Universal Studios. And then all the kids went to Disneyland.  
Claire and Kaia passed around wedding invitations.  
“You’re planning to throw the after party at the Roadhouse? Why am I learning about this only now? What if it’s already booked that night?”, Dean asked.  
“Is it?”, Claire asked.  
“Well, no… but--”  
“Great! Then it’s booked now!”  
“Oh, by the way, Moose, I found your monster archives website thingy.”  
Sam looked over to Crowley.  
“Oh yeah? I figured it won’t be very useful because hunting isn’t really necessary anymore, but I still wanted to finish it. What’d you think?”  
“I don’t think I like being categorized as chaotic neutral. Did you play a lotta DnD in uni?”  
Sam laughed.  
“I literally don’t know anybody who fits that alignment better than you. Apart from maybe your mom.”  
Crowley shook his head.  
“Also, I’m not dead, as you can see.”  
“Yeah, I noticed. I’ll fix that.”

It was late. The kids were asleep. Most of their friends too or they drove back home. The only ones still up were Team Free Will 2.0.  
“You know what we need now?”, Dean asked while sipping his beer.  
“Don’t say k--”, Cas started.  
“karaoke, that’s right babe!”  
Sam laughed. Jack had already materialized a machine on the table.  
“What do you guys wanna sing?”, he asked.  
“I know the perfect song.”  
They got into position, all four of them. If they were gonna do it, they had to fully commit. They music came on.

“CARRY ON, MY WAYWARD SON! THERE’LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DONE.”

They were all off key and off rhythim.

“LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REEEEST! DON’TYU CRY NO MOOREEE”

Dean and Jack played air guitar. Sam and Cas pretended to hit the drums.  
They jumped around the room and sang flat and immitaded the guitar riffs and it sounded truly awful, but it didn’t matter.  
Jack heard the music. This was it. The world in harmony. Everything was perfect. The way it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, I lied. I wanted to post it tonight. Yeah, I'm aware that I stole the afterlife from the Good Place (the TV show), it's just that that is the way it should work, if you ask me and if it's any different irl, I don't want it, thanks.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to everyone who came with me on this journey. It was very cathartic to write this. As far as I'm concerened, this or any other alternate ending fic (quick shout out to my fav angel Chadiel), is the way it actually ended, none of the weird crap, the writers tried to pull, no weird wigs, no evanessence covers of Carry On and no burying of the gays and/or the mentally ill.  
> Just a happy end because their son is literally God himself (like, actual God. How can your story still end badly when your son is effing God, I don't understand).  
> I'm also proud of myself for actually finishing this. I have a story I've been writing on for ~5 years and it's barely 2k words longer than this (which I completed in like 2,5 months.). That's what frustration can do to a motherfucker (aka me).  
> Aight, I'm just rambling at this point, hope y'all had fun <3


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